#maddy prior

[yes-gigging-posts]

Maddy Prior : seven for old england, on rotation this morning

[rzc11]

Magik #6 Betsy Cola Variant - love a little Maddy

[official-lauchzwiebel]

I love love LOVE folk songs because of their WIDE thematic range. There's literally a song for every situation - your boss won't pay you what you've earned? Sure bud here's approximately a 100 songs about that alone. The mine collapsed? Got you covered. You're a sailor but can't come back home? Here are the 20 top jam hits for that. You solve a love problem by crossdressing? Ah yes, take your pick. You're serenading a lovely cow? There you go, old chap!!!! It's so DIVERSE and you can always discover new songs and topics. DON'T even get me started on protest songs. I LOVE FOLK MUSIC!!!!!!!!!!

[petermorwood]

@littlepinkbeast - I was pretty sure the instrument in "Personent Hodie" is a tenor shawm because it sounds like one (I've been listening to period music & instruments for 50+ years).

However to make quite sure, I checked my LP of "A Tapestry of Carols" and there on the back of the sleeve is the confirmation.

*****

@ignisraven - I've never heard "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" on this side of the pond, and in fact had never even heard OF it until I read your post, though @dduane has vague memories of hearing it once or twice "ages ago" when she still lived in the USA.

If you'd asked about "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth", however, I'd have known all about it, since one year after The Memorable Business With The Fireplace Surround, Small Me had rather a need for that particular present.

(They were baby teeth and would have come out in due course, so TMBWTFS just sped things up. In a somewhat percussive manner...)

[victusinveritas]

Steeleye Span - The Original Lineup

Gay and Terry Woods, Ashley Hutchings, Maddy Prior and Tim Hart

[protoslacker]

Watts Cradle Maddy Prior & The Carnival Band - Topic

Maddy Prior & The Carnival Band - Topic

[keepsmagnetoaway]

Avengers Annual 10 (October 1981)

Chris Claremont/Michael Golden

This strange, extra-long Avengers issue isn't an X-Men story at all (obviously) but it has an important place in X-Men canon nevertheless: this is the debut of Rogue.

As is oddly common with X-Men, Rogue's first appearance is as a quasi-villain (there's probably some interesting reason for this but I can't be bothered to work out what it is), working for the resurgent Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, presently under the direction not of Magneto but of Mystique: the version of the gang that we last saw, that is, in Days of Future Past.

This gives us a chance to enjoy this sublime panel, which I am choosing to consider a tribute to the legendary Moira one.

Anyway, what the fuck is this comic even about? Well, I'm glad you asked, because I have no idea. Long story short, Rogue - who is basically a mystery with an outrageous Southern accent at this point - is going around absorbing the energy and powers of various Avengers. She overdid it with Carol Danvers, fully mindwiping her, and leading to lots of this kind of absolutely incomprehensible recap. I don't even want to begin to know what this is about.

More importantly, look how gorgeous that panel is! It's incredible: the colour, the machinery, the abstract background. The artist here is Michael Golden, and his work is...strange. The compositions are wonderful and the scratcht background detail, especially of machinery, is sublime, obviously in debt to Kirby in its intricacy but in a more tactile, intricate mode.

That's all great, but then our boy Michael starts drawing faces and things go a bit wrong. Here's Kitty...

...and Carol...

...and Xavier...

...and Rogue herself.

I know this is a very conscious style choice but these just don't work for me, I find them kind of uncanny and creepy. The huge, bulging eyes! They're like Margaret Keane paintings! It's a shame, because his wider stuff is so, so good, as with this climactic splash featuring Scarlet Witch.

That, by the way, is the end of the battle in which the Brotherhood is - temporarily, obviously - defeated, with Rogue vanishing for the time being, allowing the issue to end with a completely (and unintentionally) hilarious pool party sequence in which Michael Golden's genuinely terrifying nearly naked figures stand around trying to look human (and presumably also supposed to look hot? It ain't working for me).

It gets funnier when the rest of the Avengers show up, angry that they did not get the swimwear memo, or something.

That's the end - Carol quits the Avengers for a while, I guess, because of disagreements about pool party invitations or whatever - and this post is too long already but I can't let this go without also mentioning the strangest panel of all in this very strange issue, from near the beginning.

Maddy Prior! You know, like, the major X-Men character Maddy Prior, who debuts in a few years! Is this her! Apparently...not? Chris Claremont just liked the name (it's the name of Steeleye Span's singer, a very Chris Claremont thing to like), used it as a throwaway here, and then used it again for a major character later. But it's very weird that this background character feels the need to state her full name, so...I dunno? Seems like there is still debate about this. A weird element in a very weird issue.

[sorreleater]

I've been in a long daydream / Of scheme and fantasy / My thoughts come back in words / To mock me / My flimsy boat I've set a sailing / On dark and stormy seas / ’Midst tempest wailing / But while I've been away / My friend I have forgotten / I have not thought of him / Nor letter written / My vessel’s overflowed / With leaks sprung in its side / And here I'm left a-drifting / Lonely on the tide / But I must head for harbour / To put my ship in order / And see my friend again across the water / For it’s just been a long daydream