Walter Pardon And Mere Metaphor

[volgadon]

I posted the titles of some ballads in a different thread, which reminded me of good old Walter Pardon, one of the greatest treasures of English folk, ever. I think this has implications for when we talk about something in scripture or ritual being merely metaphor or symbol. Very pale, limpid words for the reality people experience and await. Walter Pardon experienced love as powerfully as any ballad hero, and that way of looking at things became how he lived, how he died, and what he hoped for after death.

http://www.mustrad.org.uk/articles/pardon2.htm

"It came as something of a surprise to be told that Walter wanted to be buried in Swafield Churchyard, rather than in Knapton. I mentioned this to a number of his friends and, eventually, was told the following story. It seems that when Walter was a young man he fell in love with a local girl who apparently did not reciprocate his feelings (his song Alice Grey - CD 2, track 9, echoes this situation exactly). I cannot say if she was later married to somebody else or not, but, when she died she was buried in Swafield and it was Walter's wish that if they could not be united in life, then they would be together in death.

I may be wrong, but over the years did Walter think, consciously or unconsciously, about the ballads of Barbara Allen or Lord Lovel when he asked to be buried close to someone he had loved for more than half a century?

And from her grave there grew a red rose,

And from his a briar.

They grew and they grew into a true-lover's knot,

For all true-lovers to admire.

So often we think of folksongs and ballads as being something separate from the people who sing them, (or at least used to sing them), but I think that we are often wrong in this perception. Walter may not have known Barbara Allen or Lord Lovel personally, but I am sure that he believed them to have been real people, possibly as real as were his rural neighbours. I once asked the Virginia singer Dan Tate what he liked about the ballad Barbara Allen and he replied that, 'those last verses just can't be beat'. Scholars may describe the rose and briar motif in terms of poetry, and beautiful poetry at that, but to Dan and Walter, and all those other countless generations of singers, it was always more than that. It was an expression of how their world could be - and, indeed, how it should be."

[treeface]

I can't tell whether Walter Pardon's fifty+ years pining for a girl who loved another is more testament to the depths of his love or the depths of his stupidity. There comes a point, ya know, where you have to choose between wasting your life and moving on.

And as another singer said, if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

Edited December 10, 2012 by treeface

[BookofMormonLuvr]

I can't tell whether Walter Pardon's fifty+ years pining for a girl who loved another is more testament to the depths of his love or the depths of his stupidity. There comes a point, ya know, where you have to choose between wasting your life and moving on.

And as another singer said, if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.

Hopeless romantic.

[The Nehor]

I can't tell whether Walter Pardon's fifty+ years pining for a girl who loved another is more testament to the depths of his love or the depths of his stupidity. There comes a point, ya know, where you have to choose between wasting your life and moving on.

This.

I have no idea why we romanticize hopeless love. The tragedy of hopeless love is that you never entirely abandon hope and just pine on. For most it becomes an excuse to live in the past. I know a senior citizen that is still pining over a lost love from his 20s. It is not sweet. It is pathetic. He spends his days writing bad music and bad poetry about it instead of living.

What a waste.

[volgadon]

Perhaps some people can choose whom to love. Others can't. Nothing to do with intelligence. Love is a powerful force and there is never quite guessing how it will go.

At any rate, my point is that what with some detachment we might call metaphor often transcends that in the lives of those for whom it has meaning. Not a revolutionary statement, of course, but it isn't meant to be.

[mfbukowski]

And from her grave there grew a red rose,

And from his a briar.

They grew and they grew into a true-lover's knot,

For all true-lovers to admire.

Great stuff- great thread!

One of my favorite versions of Barbara Allen has that last line saying:

"And the rose grew 'round the briar"

giving a beautiful image of love conquering all and covering all sins.

The beauty of these ballads of course is that they are the products of generations of "authors" passing the stories down filling each line with the wisdom of generations.

[treeface]

Perhaps some people can choose whom to love. Others can't. Nothing to do with intelligence. Love is a powerful force and there is never quite guessing how it will go.

I think it does have something to do with intelligence. By way of analogy, if the train doesn't stop at your station, then it's not your train.

Once a person sees that a love interest is, for all practical purposes, hopeless, he or she would be wise to begin the difficult task of using the mind to steer the heart. One can exercise willpower, go to therapy, go meet someone else, or shift focus from serving self to serving others. Of course none of these are the person's first choice, and so it takes great effort. It is a hard private battle for which no medals are handed out. You know you've won when that song that always reminds you of her comes on the radio, and it doesn't hurt at all. Maybe you can even be happy that she is happy, no strings attached.

And maybe in the long run it will work out for the better. As Garth Brooks once said, some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.

Unfortunately we'll never know if there was someone who was an even better match for Walter Pardon, because he probably could have tripped over her and not noticed.

Just for the record, I've walked a mile in Walter Pardon's shoes, and somewhere around here I've got the bad songs and bad poetry to prove it. I'm not unsympathetic towards his plight, but the path he chose doesn't work.

Edited December 11, 2012 by treeface

[volgadon]

Great stuff- great thread!

One of my favorite versions of Barbara Allen has that last line saying:

giving a beautiful image of love conquering all and covering all sins.

The beauty of these ballads of course is that they are the products of generations of "authors" passing the stories down filling each line with the wisdom of generations.

It is a powerful image. There is something of an otherworldly beauty to the best of the ballads. Many of course are poorly written or remembered. Some are unspeakably cruel, horrifying. Others are a stock of cliches (though look at how masterfuly Martin Carthy reconstructed the Famous Flower of Serving Men). Many of the storylines and sentiments are contrived, primitive, unpolished. Yet despite (or perhaps because of) this, they strike a deep chord.

To pick up a volume of Child is to enter a weird, wild, wonderful world.