Willie o' Winsbury

An old comic about a very old song.

There’s a lot going on in the world right now, and a lot of it doesn’t have anything to do with comics from old sketchbooks… but somehow, sharing old comics helps me get through these times! So, here goes.

This week, I wanted to find something for all these Bob Dylan fans who have been checking out my Substack. (Thanks, and hello!) Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite pull a Dylan post together. But I found something you might like instead: a comic about an old ballad, Willie o’ Winsbury.

Willie is one of the “Child Ballads,” a group of about 300 seventeeth & eighteenth century songs that were collected by Francis James Child in the 1800s, and published as “The English and Scottish Popular Ballads.” These lyrics and their tunes had a big impact on the folk singers of the 1960s, including Dylan. (Here’s a 2013 article about how the Child ballads have continued to endure in popular music.) But let me tell you how I found this song.

(If you aren’t interested in all this backstory stuff, just scroll down for the comic!)

In the late 90s… the time I was keeping my sketchbook journals, and also the time I was following Bob Dylan around… a good friend of mine introduced me to the music of British folk-rocker Richard Thompson. I’d never heard any of his music, and instantly loved it. That’s another whole story. Fast forward to 2000, and I was in a second-hand record store in Saskatoon, where I came across some CDs of live Richard Thompson shows.

One of these CDs featured an all-request show Thompson played in New York City in 1992. This CD is still my favourite Thompson recording. And among the songs he plays is the traditional ballad Willie o’ Winsbury.

I loved all those songs, but I was so curious about Willie o’ Winsbury! It reminded me of other old ballads I’d illustrated, like Canadee-I-O and Jack-a-Roe. Did this stuff really happen? But back in 2000, I couldn’t look it up! The internet was so new!

The internet was so new, in fact, that around the same time, I was approached by some Calgary folks who were creating a new website full of Canadian content, who asked me to draw a comics series for their site. It was a short-lived start-up. All these years later, I can’t remember the name of the site. And I definitely can’t tell you why I chose to illustrate Willie o’ Winsbury for one of my first web comics… but I did. And that’s why the comic is written as it is (as a serial). Ok, enough preamble. Almost time for the comic!

But one last note: the comic doesn’t do justice to the song, because it leaves out the melody. I found a lovely description of the melody on this website:

“The tune itself–the melody and chord progression–is also worth appreciating. How the chord sequence fails to resolve harmonically at any point, but circles back on itself like a staircase in an Escher print. It never seems to lose momentum.”

In case you want to listen along with the comic, here’s Richard Thompson singing the song. This isn’t the live version from my original CD, but it’s very similar. And of course, if you like this song, you should buy Richard Thompson’s music!

(Who was this king, who was a Spanish prisoner? I still have no idea whether this song is based on any actual events.)

Just a note: All the lyrics in this comic were just based on my guesses from listening to Richard Thompson’s live version of the song. So, in the panel above, I wrote “a man of burden or fame,” but I think he’s really saying “a man of birth or fame.”

I still don’t know about that line. Some versions have her saying, “I could bide no longer alain” (alone) - which sounds like a good guess.

Maybe I was reminded of the Turkish Bey in Lawrence of Arabia because he says to Lawrence: “Your skin is very fair,” just as this song notes that one of Willie’s apparently attractive qualities was that “his face was as white as milk.” Here’s part of the (kinda creepy) Turkish Bey scene, which cuts out just before the line about Lawrence’s fair skin.

You should listen to Willie o’ Winsbury!! Here’s a website that has links to a bunch of different versions, with some interesting context. It also includes the song “Farewell, Farewell” by Richard Thompson’s band Fairport Convention, which uses the same lovely and haunting tune. And here’s another website featuring a list of bands who have covered the song. I still like Thompson’s version best.

Is the king in this song a good guy, or a bad guy? Who can tell? Either way, here’s to powerful leaders who ultimately make compassionate decisions that unite people who love each other. This song might be two hundred years old, but we still need that just as much today.

Thanks for reading! In case you’re new here: I try to post comics once a week, but I don’t always succeed. And usually they’re much shorter than today’s post. I love doing this, so I do it for free. But, if you like this kind of thing, please feel free to donate to this Substack - any amount is appreciated, and sure helps me to be able to justify spending the time on this stuff! Thanks!