It’s the atmosphere. It’s like at any moment a chair could be pulled back, or someone might shift in their seat, but people are waiting with baited breath hearing this legend sing.
My brother, Phil first pointed me to this song many years ago. On my first listen I was enthralled... A couple of years ago, as my brother lay dying in the hospital from cancer (I had gone to say my goodbyes that day), I sat waiting for the news the that he had passed. Late at night I called and there was a nurse who was sitting with him in his room. I asked "Can I play him a song?" She held the phone to his ear while I played this song for him. Afterward, that nurse asked me about it. We had a wonderful chat about the song, what t meant to Phil. It was one of the most powerful moments of my life. I miss you, Phil Thanks for showing me this song
What THEY DONT want you to know is, Stan was actually a celt legendary hero. This ain't even a song he was there fam. This is just what happened to him man.
I believe everybody owes it to themselves to give this song a listen to on a brand new set of headphones. Listening to each note played, each chord strummed, close your eyes and let the imagery reveal itself through this immensely talented artist. What a start to the day!
I've been all over youtube tonight. there is no better version of this song. Its not just the rumbling baritone, its the drama and feeling he injects into the song. Stan, damn it all that you died.
I feel the exact same way and have ever since I discovered this song and this video one day in the spring of 2018. Only four years ago and your post was nine years ago, but otherwise, same. It was weird how I first found this song from Kate Rusby (she's very very good but this isn't her best song) and then went everywhere else on RU-vid finding several other versions and within about two or three hours *this* one just was the one that had already captured my heart forever and it must have been *really* forever because I still feel the exact same. Love is love. Once you find it, it lasts. ❤️ The way he tells the story in song is the best ever *for* this song and makes this version the best one (for me anyway). He just puts his whole heart in it. I discovered the Archie Fisher one too on the same day and was glad that Archie had written it but gladder still that Stan sang it. This one just is my song and gets used by me for all sorts of spiritual healing and so on (very appropriate considering what the song is about) and of course I love the picture forever too. ❤️ (You can actually *see* all of the main characters, including his hound and his hawk. ^___^ Perfect.) Stan. Rogers. Forever. ❤️💙❤️ Left us much too soon. Always with us in our hearts. ❤️💙❤️
This particular accompaniment is also particularly beautiful and does not come with any of the other versions. Just the combination of the way he sings it *and* the accompaniment *and* the one pretty visual image...had me enchanted from the very first and still does. Already fell in love with "Barrett's Privateers" about a year and a half earlier but this one is the song that got me *even more* enchanted and enraptured with Stan Rogers' work. Best, version, on, RU-vid, forever. ❤️💙❤️ So glad it's still here. ^___^
Me, too! It's when the magic of the world comes forth, and the song's story turns from mundane to mystical. I can see it in my mind's eye, and the whole song just pauses, like a heart skipping a beat in awe and wonder.
@@NigelOrear It wasn't exactly very mundane before that, what with the witch being mentioned by the talking birds and that sort of thing, but yes, I see what you mean. That was the line where the magic was proven, instead of only suspected. ^____^
Aside from loving his music, Stan Rogers gave an interesting lesson in visual perspective. I saw him at the University of Regina auditorium, a small venue, and his band had Garnett and a two or three other guys. Didn't think about how they looked until after the show they came into the crowd and shook hands. Found out they were all the size of fire trucks. Listening to them now, that should come as no surprise
I was at a Yes concert at Maple Leaf Gardens just a few blocks away from where this live album was being recorded. The Yes concert changed my life but if only I could have seen both because Stan’s show would have done the same. Feel lucky to have found his music years later and this incredible live version of this gem.
As fresh as the day the lads recorded it. The original Archie Fisher recording is excellent, but this live recording is so full of great energy, it totally eclipses it. It's hard to believe it's 49 years(!) since Stan Rogers died. The music lives on.
What a beautiful thread of comments, so many intelligent, sensitive, and thoughtful. (And two or three trolls, but what fairy tale would be complete without them?)
i been waiting for someone to say that, why i have no idea , probably because i could not imagine anything else but!!! cheers to you from cape breton island
Stan Rogers is perhaps the best ballad singer of the late 20th century. Can't help but wonder how much richer our lives might have been had he not died so young.
Saw Stan in the early 80's and I was blown away!!! Dumbfounded, sweating, humbled, transformed, I never a live performance could be so powerful. And it wasn't even rock-n-roll. LOL. RIP Stan!
Sad to say I just found him this year. I was born after he had died, so I never would have had a chance to see him perform, but I envy your experience.
Living a free life on the wind and in the grass, doing what one wants in places no one dares to go whilst listening to music like this reminds me that the times for heroes and adventurers is not over damn this Covid-19 the witch of the Westmoreland will rid us of the pandemic.
I’ll thank my mom this Mother’s Day for playing me this sound and the original on an old cd :) some years back . She reintroduced me in adulthood to the glorious Stan Rogers who she and my dad had played in my childhood. The song transports me . What an artist ! And love the story: a journey , fear , pain, defensiveness and aggression met with tenderness , wisdom, healing , magic , a sexy sexy night , and possible invulnerability / immorality ???
I was singing this song when I drove through the Kirkstone pass and later looked down on the Ullswater mere. I was up and over Helvelyn on the same day.
@@Brenthias It's meant to be healing, not exhausting. In this particular context, anyway. (I'm only saying. 😉) (Although I'm not sure about six times in a row though. 😉)
@@Brenthias Someone imagining himself just a bit too vividly into the story there, perhaps? (Gotta watch that with some of these magical ballads, you know. Tam Lin, for instance. 😉)
I love everything about this - voice, song, fairy tale. The witch's generosity is sweet. He tried to capture her but she: "you're in no shape, sweetheart, I'm more powerful than you but I will indeed heal you, love you and send you on your way with my blessing which will keep you safe forevermore." I'm guessing he was gorgeous lol. Would make a great video.
+Kristin Andrene I understand Stan was planning to record two more of Archie's songs before the former's death; wish I knew which ones they were (Stan had already recorded "Dark Eyed Molly")
wouldn't that have been wonderful, Mark?; "Western Island" might have been another good fit...it's interesting than Stan reached out to Gordon Bok too: I can't think of any other modern songwriters he tried
Fisher hit all the marks with this story and Stan absolutely does the best version of this tune. Consider this: the knight carries a silver sword - not iron or steel - and a rowan shield. He talks to animals and they to him. Is he even human? Archie obviously knew his Joseph Campbell.
No I think the sword is most likely silver because he is hunting a witch. The knight carries a Rowan shield which would be useless in combat the wood is to soft but rowan would is known to ward of evil spirits and magic. This knight if fully equipped for hunting witches. He even has a silver chain.
Not to mention that he rides for what I'm guessing is most of the night with a bleeding wound and is still able to chase down the witch in her centaur form. I'm thinking Oath of the Ancients Paladin and that the wound itself has some kind of spell or curse on it
@@silliestsususagest3276 Westmorland was actually in the Scottish march (part of scotland) for a long time, particularly in the time this song would have been sung. Plus it takes heavy inspiration from scottish history. Plus Archie Fisher was scottish.
Stan's cover of this song led me to discover Archie Fisher - another source of wonderful music.The Witch is one of Archie's best. Search "Witch of the West-Mer-Lands" to hear the original.
Has it occurred to anyone yet that this mare-lady is actually a horsewoman? ^___^ Female centaur, or something. Well, they do say that perhaps it is possible that the centaurs just *may* have been inspired by the sight of men riding horses. 🐎 And I've just remembered something else. Isn't the story told that the centaurs were supposed to be very good at healing? I wonder was *that* maybe part of what Archie Fisher (the original author of this) was thinking of. Greek legend transplanted into an English/Scottish sort of environment. Add in the style of the traditional English and Scottish ballads. Voila. There you have it. A magical healing centaur woman creature in our midst. ^____^ Sounds much better in the actual song though. ^___^ Much more kind/caring/loving/healing too. ^___^ Thank you forever to Archie Fisher for writing and singing this and especially to Stan Rogers for singing this version. Bravo to both of you.
If you combine the old Scottish ballad of "The Twa Corbies" (except that the knight gets to live, in this one) with the ancient Greek legends of the centaurs and their healing skills, then this is what you get. ^___^ Can't believe it took me all of four years to finally notice that. Replying to myself here but under some special circumstances I think that's okay. ^____^
She stood in a gown of the velvet blue. Even though the back half of her is a horse (mare). 🐎 How is this possible? I suppose her dress is draped over her horse half. Bound round with a silver chain, of course. It would be interesting to create a doll of that, to admire or to play with or whatever. ^___^
She's a shapeshifter! "There's none can harm the knight who's LAIN WITH the Witch of the Westmoreland": That idiom means the weren't just lying down side by side! She was all woman at that point.
@@markmandel6738 I know it means "lain with" in that sense but I'm not sure if that means that she can turn all the way human (physically at least) or not. (Also. She just might have human private parts hidden somewhere in among all that horsehair/fur. 🐎) Okay. This has got me wondering things similar to when I was wondering what exactly one of my online friends, some years ago, was talking/writing/posting about when she wrote that her main male character (who was definitely human) was (falsely) accused of having had sex with a female unicorn. 🦄 (Possibly the writer of this interesting work may have been thinking partly of how unicorns, and maidens, are traditionally associated with virginal purity.) Anyway. I wanted to know if that would even be possible (a human man having sex with a unicorn). She wrote back that yes, technically it would indeed be possible. (This song is now reminding me of her fiction.) I also have been wondering for the past four years quite exactly how it was that she (the horsewoman) "stood in a gown of the velvet blue, bound round with a silver chain". (The painter or illustrator did *not* try to draw that or paint that, as you can see. How very wise of him or her.) I am somewhat imagining/envisioning the lower part of the gown in question being draped fetchingly, enchantingly and bewitchingly around or across her equine hindquarters. 🐎🐴🐎👗
@@markmandel6738 So how many men do you figure this witchwoman hath lain with? Because somehow I'm thinking that he's probably not the only one. (Not calling her a slut or anything of that sort, however. Just a horsewoman. Mare. Possible shapeshifter. Etc.) (By the way I think I do tend to keep imagining that she either is or appears human at the end of the song. It just somehow seems like that to me. In my imagination, at least.)
You're a fan of the heavy meat are you? Lmao....you can still love Stans music and love the heavy meat....I had a cousin who loved the heavy meat and loved "wake me up before you go go " so there ya go
All of my Stan Rogers music is getting pretty beat up and is all on cassettes. I am going to rebuild my Stan fix on CDs starting now. What a wonderful larger than life man he was. He lives on!
I'm told that Archie Fisher collected this song but didn't write it. Stan changed only 3-5 words but infused it with so much...I don't know what to call it. It almost puts me in a trance state. If this song truly
brilliant, this is by far the best version of this song ive ever heard...so much gusto, and passion...bravo sir...you left this earth much too soon Stan.
This is undoubtedly one of my favourite tunes that Stan put out. A great cover and beautiful imagery of a time long lost in the modern world where we had respect for the natural world. Some of us still do :)
Absolutely superb version from Stan Rogers. I knew the song from the glorious Barbara Dickson, a close friend of Archie Fisher, who recorded it on her 1972 album 'From the Beggars Mantle.
Obviously not paying attention to the entire song. He commands his hound to course (hunt/chase) the mare and commands the hawk to bring the maiden. Later in the song the maiden is dressed in a blue velvet gown bound with a silver chain. She's a shape-shifter.
I grew up hearing Archie Fisher's version and only came across the Stan Rogers performance as an adult. Both versions have complementary charms for me.
Stan was born way ahead of his time the cannon fodder will never understand.............if you don't get were you come from youll never know were your going....you are your past never forget...what you are.......now more whiskey wench..................lol god I miss the good old day's
Throughout the seventies until his death, he played many venues in Toronto Canada: Mariposa, The Groaning Board, Tranzac Club. I was supposed to see him the day he died.
