Singles

Lucy Wan

Frankie Archer

As a female folk musician it is irritating and boring when, in song after song, women are murdered, raped, deceived, burned - you name it - by men. Lucy Wan is a perfect example of this. Man impregnates woman, man murders woman, lies about it to his mother, runs away and ultimately gets away with it.
I wanted to give a voice to Lucy in my version
As a female folk musician it is irritating and boring when, in song after song, women are murdered, raped, deceived, burned - you name it - by men. Lucy Wan is a perfect example of this. Man impregnates woman, man murders woman, lies about it to his mother, runs away and ultimately gets away with it.
I wanted to give a voice to Lucy in my version of the song, because in most renditions all she can do is cry and tell her brother he has made her pregnant before he swiftly kills her.
I gave Lucy Wan power and a voice in the song, just as she and endless other women in endless other folk songs deserve.
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  1. Lucy Wan

Close the Coalhouse Door

Frankie Archer

"Extraordinary" - Tom Robinson, BBC 6Music

"Striking and individual" - Neil March, Trust the Doc

"Chilling" - Jon Wilks, Tradfolk



Written by Gateshead's great Alex Glasgow in 1968, hear my version of the song.
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Over the Border

Frankie Archer

I found this Northumbrian pipe tune in a manuscript. It's called 'Over the Border' and I think was about Hadrian's Wall. I got a slight obsession with the sound of this tune, and the idea of borders. How humans perceive and create borders which do not exist in nature, and what this means for the world.
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