STEELEYE SPAN - NOW WE ARE SIX - Melancholic + Mysterious UK Folk LP
LP

STEELEYE SPAN - NOW WE ARE SIX

Chrysalis Canada LP
record is VG+
cover has ringwear ( see pic)


Tracks include:
Thomas the Rhymer
Drink Down the Moon
Two Magicians
Now We Are Six
Seven Hundred Elves
Long-A-Growing
The Mooncoin Jig
Edwin
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
To Know Him is to Love Him

The opener "Thomas the Rhymer" is always fun, with a nice, adventurous arrangement. And it's really funny to me to picture Thomas bowing down and going "Hail, Queen of Heaven!" while the faerie queen's going, um, dude. No. It's true that the story doesn't really GO much of anywhere, but the song is still very much worthwhile.

"Drink Down the Moon" is also pretty great; it's a slow, melancholic song with sort of mysterious lyrics, that towards the end takes a left turn by segueing into the rollicking--and totally delightful--"The Cuckoo," which features one of my favorite bits of innuendo in any Span song: "It is thorn and it is prickle, it is compassed all around/It is thorn and it is prickle and it isn't easy found/She said young man you blunder and he said it isn't true/And then left her with the makings of a young cuckoo."

Then there the ever-popular "Two Magicians." This song is especially good when you realize what the band's done with it. What I take to be the original version, as performed by Martin Carthy, is a sort of queasy song of sexual conquest--but the Span version is much "nicer"--sweet, even; the male magician comes across as being much less predatory, and the whole thing has more the feel of an elaborate flirtation than an aggressive pursuit.