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The Lovely Banks of Lea

Peta Webb sang The Lovely Banks of Lea at The Down River Folk Club, King William IV, Walthamstow on 19 December 1972 at Oak’s final gig. This recording was included in 2003 on Oak’s Musical Traditions anthology Country Songs and Music. She also recorded this song in 1973 for her Topic album I Have Wandered in Exile. Rod Stradling noted in Oak’s CD booklet:

The only example of this song in Roud is Peter Kennedy’s 1952 BBC recording from Mary Connors, of Belfast, and this is where Peta learned it. The song is also given as Roud 6857 (When True Lovers Meet) and was sung by Joe Heaney, Angela Mulkere, Sheila Stewart and others. It is now a well-known-to-hackneyed song in Ireland, but Peta sticks to Mary Connors’ enjoyably idiosyncratic version.

and A.L. Lloyd noted on Peta Webb’s album:

Yet another song on the favourite theme of exile and separation, a song of regret decorated with conventional flowers like a Victorian memorial card. The tune, a subtle one with a ‘dorian’ feel to it, is close to the melody used in England (and Ireland?) for Gathering Rushes in the Month of May (or Underneath Your Apron).

Mary Connors’ 1952 BBC recording of The Lovely Banks of Lea was finally included in 2014 on the Topic anthology The Flax in Bloom (The Voice of the People Volume 27).

Lyrics

Peta Webb sings The Lovely Banks of Lea

And it’s what will you do, me love, when I am on the ocean?
What will you do, me love, when I am far away?
For I’ll think of you all the while, you’re me Irish girl, I love you.
I will pray to the stars to guide you on the lovely banks of Lea.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
Every branch, every bower, every rosie and may flower,
Reminds me of my darling on the lovely banks of Lea.

Oh, don’t you remember that evening where I met you?
I’d kiss you and I’d court you and dandle you on me knee.
I own to God above, you’re me Irish girl, I love you.
There is nothing in this wide, wide world I would rather have than you.

Don’t stay out so late on the moorlands, my darling.
Don’t stay out so late on the moorlands for me.
But little was the notion I’d part from you forever,
Never more to meet you on the lovely banks of Lea.

I wrote me love a letter with roses in the bottom,
I wrote me love a letter but no answer to it came.
Ah, for you my heart is breaking, my Irish girl I love you.
There is nothing under the heavens I could love as well as you.

Oh get for me some roses, some blooming Irish roses,
Get for me some roses of the finest ever grew.
I’ll sow them on the heather for my fond Irish girl
Who now lies in the churchyard on the lovely banks of Lea.