Marie's Wedding
trad
This one is from The Clancy Brothers songbook. I think of it as a children’s song, a happy sort of skipping song. It’s a great little dance tune, often in conjunction with Tell Me Ma. Also known as The Lewis Bridal Song.
Chorus
Step we gaily, on we go
Heel for heel and toe for toe
Arm in arm and row on row
All for Marie's wedding
Over hillways up and down
Myrtle green and bracken brown
Past the shielings through the town
All for sake of Marie
Chorus
Red her cheeks as rowans are
Bright her eyes as any star
Fairest of them all by far
Is our darling Marie
Chorus
Oh plenty herring, plenty meal
Plenty peat to fill her creel
Plenty bonny bairns as well
That's the toast for Marie
Chorus
The Guitars in My Life
My first guitar was a small-bodied steel string which was given to me by a family I babysat for. It wasn’t pretty, and the neck was bowed such that the strings were several millimetres from the fretboard by the fifth fret. Nevertheless, it was a guitar and I taught myself to play. I watched closely whenever I could to see what guitarists did with their fingers. To this day, I can see Margaret Roadknight’s long fingers shaping chords, or Alan Leesing’s fingers dancing on the strings.
I never became much of a guitarist, but I can hold my own at a session.
In 1969, I was living and working in Brisbane. One day, I went into King’s music store just to browse around. There was a nylon string guitar on special for $45 - more than I earned in a week! It was a Kimbara, made for King’s of Brisbane. I put a deposit on it and it took me about 3 months to pay it off. By then, I had returned to Melbourne. When I finally paid it off, my then boyfriend, George Wilken, strapped it to his back, hopped on his scooter and brought it to me!
It was a well-travelled instrument. In 1973, I returned to the US with my husband and Dion, intending to stay for a year or two. I took the guitar in a soft case. I had to let it take its chances with the rest of the baggage. I am pleased to report that it made the trip there and back with no damage.
In about 1978, Phil Buckle gave Micki a Takamine acoustic guitar. She wanted a guitar she could use in the classroom, but would have preferred a nylon string. I was well into the folk scene then, and wanted an acoustic guitar but couldn’t afford it. So, we swapped guitars! Perfect!
A few years later, I heard that the Kimbara had been damaged in the classroom.
In 1994, the Takamine came to a sad end when McGinty trashed my house, including putting his foot through the guitar. Feeling quite bereft, I rang JB and asked if I could have his guitar with me until I could replace the Takamine. I can’t remember who brought it to Newstead, but it appeared within a day or two. When I could afford it, I paid JB for it. For the record, the guitar was a copy of a Gibson Hummingbird.
I couldn’t bring myself to dispose of the broken guitar and it sat in its broken case for some months. One night, Dion and I sat in front of my wood heater and ritually fed the body of the guitar into the fire, bit by bit. It smelled wonderful! I kept the neck for many years, a reminder of all the hands that had caressed it over years of taking it to festivals and sessions.
