Against The Prevailing Mood

A representative album by the respected and influential English folk musician Martin Carthy from the late eighties called Right Of Passage. The instrumentation is mainly just Carthy accompanying himself on guitar or mandolin but there are occasional contributions from John Kirkpatrick on one-row melodeon or button accordion and from fiddlers Chris Wood and Dave Swarbrick. Carthy isn't a dazzling guitar stylist but he plays some effective instrumentals here. The main focus is on the songs however. There are inclusions which reflect the tradional English folk preoccupations such as innocent country girls waylaid by wandering sailors and got with child ( Eggis In Her Basket ), vengeful wives ( A Stitch In Time ) and vengeful husbands, murdered lovers and unrepentant wives ( Bill Norrie ) all sung with gusto by Carthy. The central theme of this release however is a trilogy of songs influenced by the then recent Falklands War. Carthy's own Company Policy is a brave indictment of Thatcher's callousness that went against the prevailing feeling for what was essentially a popular and triumphalist war in many English eyes and in fact saved her electorally. The 19th century Banks Of The Nile and 17th century Dominion Of The sword refer to earlier conflicts but resonate with more contemporary events to provide damning condemnations.