Over Yonder’s Hill- Amy Birch (Dev) 1976 REC
[From: Devon Tradition (12TS349, 1979) and reissued on TSCD661 'My Father is the King of the Gypsies.' This version was learned from mother, Dehlia Crocker, who kept a notebook of her songs. It was also recorded by Birch's daughter Jean Orchard who used her grandmother's text. There are only a handful of differences between Jean and Amy's versions.
The "Down in the Meadow" stanza is the penultimate stanza here. The last three stanzas are from Constant Lady.
R. Matteson 2017]
Over Yonder’s Hill - sung by Amy Birch; recorded by Sam Richards, Paul Wilson and Tish Stubbs in the singer's trailer at Exebridge, Devon, November 1976.
Over yonder’s hill there is an old house,
Where my true love goes and sits himself down,
Takes another fresh girl on his knee,
Now don’t you think that’s a grief to me?
A grief a grief I’ll tell you for why,
Because she has more gold than I,
Gold may glitter and silver will shine,
And all my sorrows will fade in time.
I wish the Lord my baby was born,
And sit smiling in his own daddy’s arms,
And me myself wrapped up in cold clay,
Then all my sorrows would fade away.
There is a flower I have heard people say,
They grow by night and it fades by day,
Now if that flower I could find,
It would cure my heart and ease my mind.
So across the fields that poor girl she ran,
Gathering flowers just as they sprang,
Some she picked and some she pulled,
Until she gathered her apron full.
She takes them home and she makes her bed,
She puts a snow white pillow in under her head,
She lies down and she closed her eyes,
Closed her eyes, no more for to rise.