The Bonny Bunch of Roses [trad.]
This song of history is a dramatic dialogue between Napoleon Bonaparte's son, the Duke of Reichstadt (1811-1832), and his widow, the Empress Mary Louise after Napoleon's death. Don't be like your father, she tells her son.
A.L. Lloyd recorded this song in 1956 for his Riverside LP English Street Songs. He commented in the album's sleeve notes:
This ballad was an extremely popular broadside in the earlier days of the 19th century all over England, Scotland and Ireland. Note the unmistakeable air of sympathy for the downfall of the “bold Corsican.” Perhaps this ballad began its life in Ireland; be that as it may, it certainly was an important item in the repertoire of native English street singers, and the back-street audiences found nothing amiss in the singers' attitude to the enemy of their country. Perhaps, like Beethoven, the English commoners had once regarded Napoleon as a possible liberator from oppression and misery, and were sad rather than angry when this turned out to be an error. Some say the bunch of roses symbolises England, Scotland and Ireland; others that it is a metaphor for the red-coated British Army.
Nic Jones sang The Bonny Bunch of Roses on his eponymous second album, Nic Jones, just after the track Napoleon's Lamentation. He commented in the album notes:
The text of this ballad appears to have caused some confusion among folk-song enthusiasts, according to Frank Purslow in his note to the song (Marrowbones, p. 103). He mentions James Reeves particularly as having commented on it. He goes on to say that the song is an imaginary conversation between Napoleon's young son and Marie Louise, second wife of Napoleon. This idea makes the song much clearer. The son threatens to “raise a terrible army” and to assert his power. They talk of Napoleon's Moscow campaign and Marie Louise warns her son that he'll follow Napoleon to the grave. Then, in the last verse, the son states that he is dying. This last verse becomes plainer if we understand that the son died at twenty-one of a weakness in the chest aggravated by severe, self-imposed physical exercise.
The tune in Marrowbones is a version of The Rose Tree, although I have used the more common tune, a variant of The Bonny Bunch of Roses.
People have suggested that “roses” is a corruption of “rushes”, but either way Cecil Sharp says, “Surely our country has never been called by a prettier name then the bonny bunch of roses-o.”
Fairport Convention recorded The Bonny Bunch of Roses for the first time in May 1970 at Gold Star Studios, Hollywod. This recording was published much later on their anthology Meet on the Ledge: The Classic Years (1967-1975). A BBC Radio “Folk on One” broadcast from July 26, 10970 is on Fairport's 4 CD set Live at the BBC. Their best know version is the title track of Fairport Convention's first LP for the Vertigo label, The Bonny Bunch of Roses. Another live version, from La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia on June 23, 1977 found its way on the 4 CD anthology Fairport UnConventional.
Shirley and Dolly Collins sang The Bonny Bunch of Roses at the Folk Festival Sidmouth 1979. This track was incuded on their CD Shapshots.
Lyrics
Nic Jones sings
By the margin of the ocean,
One pleasant evening in the month of June,
The pleasant-singing blackbird
His charming notes did tune.
Was there I spied a woman
All in great grief and woe,
Conversing with young Bonaparte
Concerning the Bonny Bunch of Roses-O
And then up and spoke the young Napoleon
And he took hold of his mother's hand,
“Oh mother dear, be patient
And soon I will take command.
I'll raise a terrible army
And through tremendous danger go.
And in spite of all of the universe
I'll conquer the Bonny Bunch of Roses-O.”
“And when first you saw the Great Napoleon,
You fell down on your bended knee
And you asked your father's life of him
And he's granted it most manfully.
'Twas then he took an army
And o'er the frozen alps did go;
And he said, “I'll conquer Moscow
And come back for the Bonny Bunch of Roses-O.”
“And so he's took three hundred thousand fighting men
And kings likewise for to join his throng.
He was as well provided for
Enough to take the whole world alone.
But when he came to Moscow
All o'erpowered by driving snow
And Moscow was a-blazing,
He lost the Bonny Bunch of Roses-O.“
“Oh my son, don't speak so venturesome,
For England she has a heart of oak,
And England, and Ireland, and Scotland,
Their unity has never been broke.
And so my son, think on, your father
In St Helena, his body it lies low,
And you will follow after,
Beware of the Bonny Bunch of Roses-O.”
“And it's goodbye to my mother forever,
For I am on my dying bed.
Had I lived I might have been clever,
But now I bow my youthful head.
And while our bodies do moulder
And weeping willows over us do grow,
The deeds of brave Napoleon
Will sting the Bonny Bunch of Roses-O.”
By the margin of the ocean,
One pleasant evening in the month of June,
The pleasant-singing blackbird
His charming notes did tune.
Was there I spied a female
All in great grief and woe,
Conversing with young Bonaparte
Concerning the Bonny Bunch of Roses-O
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