Driving Home

ARTISAN

DRIVING HOME

Bedspring Music: BOING 8905,

CD

An early Artisan folk classic with traditional & contemporary songs, as well as five originals.

Track List
Intro
Reviews
Songwords--Buy and Buy

First Released 1989 on LP - Released for the first time on CD, August 1997

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In 1998, this album was nominated for two CARAs, Contemporary a cappella Recording Awards, one for Best Folk Album, and one for Best Folk Song. It won the CARA for Best Folksong with Brian Bedford's song, "Mabel."

Track List

1. Going Nowhere (Brian Bedford) Vocals - Artisan
2. Though I Live Not Where I Love * Listen (Trad. arr. Artisan) Vocals - Artisan
3. Working Men of England (Trad. arr. Artisan) Vocals - Artisan
4. Poverty Knock (Trad. Arr. Artisan) Vocals - Artisan
5. Unicorns (Bill Caddick) Vocals - Artisan
6. Mary Ellen Carter (Stan Rogers) Vocals - Artisan
7. The Burning Times (Charlie Murphy) Vocals - Artisan
8. One More Burden (Brian Bedford) Vocals - Artisan
9. Shift and Spin (Ewan McVicar) Vocals - Artisan
10. Mabel (Brian Bedford) Vocals - Artisan
11. The Coal and Albert Berry (Brian Bedford) Vocals - Artisan
12. Buy and Buy * Listen (Brian Bedford) Vocals - Artisan
13. Home (Brian Bedford) Vocals - Artisan

Album Credits

Originally produced for and released by John Adams for Festival Records, Halifax, England in 1989 as a 10 track vinyl/cassette album.Original cut by John Tams and Stewart M Field at Abbey Road Studios
Digitally remastered by Brian Bedford
Three additional tracks produced by Brian Bedford (Poverty Knock and Shift & Spin recorded at Beaumont Street Studios, Huddersfield, One More Burden recorded at Park Head Studio.)
Sleeve design and artwork by Bryan Ledgard of Ledgard Jepson
Scrap-car cover photograph by Chris Coe
Re-released on CD 1997 by Bedspring Music
e-mail artisan at artisan-harmony dot com

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About the album

This is the album that includes the a cappella version of Mary Ellen Carter, arguably Stan Rogers most famous anthem. It also includes The Burning Times, a song introduced into the UK by Roy Bailey but written by Charlie Murphy from Seattle. Often asked for as "The Witches' Song" it is a wide ranging song which covers religious bigotry, the Inquisition, feminism and green issues in just three verses and its chorus which is the chant of goddesses of the old religions. Isis, Astarte, Diana, Hecate, Demeter, Kali, Innana. The other classic song which has been much requested over the years is Bill Caddick's "Unicorns", here given a melodic smooth close harmony treatment.

Industry is represented by The Coal and Albert Berry, written by Lancastrian, Ted Edwards; Working men of England, a traditional song, given by the late Tom brown of Worksop and two of the songs new to this re-issue, Ewan McVicar's Shift and Spin and Poverty Knock. This latter song is quoted as traditional but it is thought to have been written by Tom Daniel of Batley. He claimed to have "remembered" it in the 1960s but prior to his version, no previous versions have ever been traced.

Brian Bedford's own songs are also well in evidence, and this album originally showed Brian's potential as a song-writer which was fully realised on later albums. The very singable, Going Nowhere and the evergreen comedy song, Mabel are two of his earliest songs written away from the classroom for an adult audience. Following closely on those are Buy and Buy, a hard-hitting indictment of consumerist society and Home, the end-of-evening, end-of-festival song. One new Brian Bedford song is on here as one of the three extra tracks. One More Burden was written for Comforters and Candlelight, a play Artisan was invited to take part in at the RSC's Swan Theatre, Stratford which was based on Dickens' Christmas Carol and performed by Kaleidoscope Theatre Company, a company of professional Downs Syndrome actors. Sadly the song ended up being omitted from the play but it was too good to ignore so it appears here.

Last but not least is the archetypal English folk song, Though I Live Not Where I Love, but here Artisan has presented it in a much more gutsy version than the usual "fair maid languishing and lamenting" treatment of the female soloist. This song was brought into our repertoire by chance when Artisan took part in a festival workshop with the late Keith Marsden and his wife Val, and Bread and Roses, a (then) four-woman vocal outfit. Sarah Morgan from Bread and Roses suggested that we all take a song not previously in any of our repertoires and arrange it especially for this workshop as duo, trio and quartet to explore possibilities and show differences in approach. Since we were sure we wouldn't use the song again, we let our imagination run riot and produced what we laughingly called the "disco re-mix" version. (Up tempo it is--but disco it isn't!) It was such a success that it stayed in the repertoire and eventually it ended up on this album.

The original Driving Home has only been available on tape for several years, now it is available on CD with the three bonus tracks.

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Songs

Buy and Buy

Part lyric...

Buy and buy, buy and buy
In the land of never-never, buy and buy
Buy and buy, buy and buy
Where nothing lasts forever, buy and buy

Well you live for your work and you work for your living
And you gather up possessions like a magpie in a midden
'Cos you no-one if you're nothing, you're possessed and you're possessive
And the advertisers taunt you as you try to be impressiveTune B
Buy and buy, buy and buy
In the land of never-never, buy and buy
Buy and buy, buy and buy
Where nothing lasts forever, buy and buy

Buy the good life for a moment, nothing's real it's all for show
They are having one more final sale and everything must go
They're closing down the world, one surplus planet, knock down price
Knowing stocks won't last forever, take the market-man's advice

Buy and buy, buy and buy
In the land of never-never, buy and buy
Buy and buy, buy and buy
Where nothing lasts forever, buy and buy

© Brian Bedford

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Published by Bedspring Music
10 Park Head, Birdsedge, Huddersfield, England, HD8 8XW
Phone + 44 (0)1484 606230

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These pages were created by Jacey Bedford © April 22nd 1997
Last updated 29th March 2014