When I was (suite) – demo revisited and remastered

Several decades ago, I put a tune to ‘A Shropshire Lad’ XVIII:

Oh, when I was in love with you
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.

But now the fancy passes by
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they say that I
Am quite myself again.

For a long time I sang that (occasionally) unaccompanied. More recently, it occurred to me that the same tune also fitted XIII ‘When I was one-and-twenty…’ and that the two actually had a thematic connection. So I put together a suite of the two, both accompanied on guitar, and also including an instrumental interlude. I’m still working on a final recording of that, which might also include an instrumental version of ‘Down by the Salley Gardens’: indeed, Sally Goddard and I were discussing a live set a couple of years ago that would have included all three songs. Recently, I reverted to an unaccompanied version of XVIII as sung here. And that might be the way I do XVIII in the final version. Here, however, is a remastered version of an early take on the combination of XVIII and XIII, including a quasi-orchestral interlude. (It’s actually a Yamaha keyboard, since that was the nearest thing to a real orchestra I had to hand!)