Martin Simpson - Tumblr Posts

I’ve been listening to Willie Taylor by Martin Simpson but can’t find much information about the ballad’s origin, do you know anything?

Suggested Song (do you want the history of your favorite folk song? dm me or submit an ask and I'll do a full rundown)

"Willie Taylor" Martin Simpson, 2016 Upon hearing this song, it stuck out to me for a few reasons. the active character of the song is a crossdresser, this song and its relatives are about a woman crossdressing as a man to find her husband, and in some versions, she doesn't even care that her husband remarries and attends their wedding positively. and often she marries the ship Captain and they live happily together. In my opinion, this puts it in or adjacent to the category of transgender history. Very fascinating for a folk song .

"Willie Taylor" is a rendition of the traditional English Folk song "William Taylor", (which is the oldest song I have covered on this blog) was first published in a chapbook in London in 1712 (I couldn't find a digitized copy) and would continue to be published up through the 1800s. The first publication I could find and show you is from 1792 in the chapbook "Four New Songs". in this, it is titled "Billy Taylor"

The Earliest sheet music I could find is from 1895, Collected by Frank Kidson

and here's its melody

This song also seems to be related to another song about a crossdressing sailor woman called "The Rambling Female Sailor" collected here in the 1860s by Frank Kidson, but they are classified as different songs.

The oldest recording is from 1908, which can be found here the earliest recording I could find that is available is from 1938, performed by George Vinton Graham

here's another version from 1967 by Hedy West

While in most modern (1860s onward) versions, the song is comedic, originally it was completely serious and genuine. this folk song from the early 1700s if not older, presented a crossdresser as a sort of folk hero, a figure that people would sing about with veneration. That's amazing to me. I think it would be fun to reimagine the song as either: the woman cross-dresses as a man and runs away with her husband's woman after killing him as a butchfemme relationship, or the woman could be reinterpreted as a transgender man who runs away and falls in love with the ship captain. idk I just think these would be cute fun new renditions.