Name: Omie Wise
Duration: P00H03M42S
Description: Songs about the sexual exploitation of women by powerful and violent men are common in traditional music, and this true story of the rape and murder of Naomi Wise in 1808 exists in many versions. These ‘murder ballads’, often sung by women, are not salacious - before the days of mass media, they carried clear warnings about predatory males.

Omie Wise

from Heavy Duty - Ballads of the Unfree by Bill Lloyd

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about

Songs about the sexual exploitation of women by powerful and violent men are common in traditional music, and this true story of the rape and murder of Naomi Wise in 1808 exists in many versions. These ‘murder ballads’, often sung by women, are not salacious - before the days of mass media, they carried clear warnings about predatory males.

lyrics

Omie Wise (Trad.) This is the Roscoe Holcombe version.

Tell me no story, tell me no lies
It’s tell me the story of little Omie Wise
I’ll tell you no story, I’ll tell you no lies
Just how she was deluded by John Lewis’s lies

He promised to meet her at Adam's High Spring,
Some money he would bring her and other fine things
She flew like an eagle to Adam’s High Spring
No money did he bring her nor other fine things

No money, no money, my sweetheart said he
But hop up behind me and married we will be.
She hopped up behind him and away they did go
Down by the river where the deep water flows

John Lewis, John Lewis, I’m afraid of your ways
I’m afraid that you will lead my poor body astray
He beat her, he banged her, he knocked her around
He threw her in the river where he knew that she would drown

Two boys were a fishing all on the Sunday morn’
They found little Omie’s body down by the old Mill Pond
They threw the nets around her, and dragged her to the bank
They drew her from the water and laid her on a plank

They sent for John Lewis to come to that place
They set her up before him that he might know her face
My name is John Lewis, my name I’ll not deny
I killed my own lover, her name was Omie Wise

credits

from Heavy Duty - Ballads of the Unfree, released February 1, 2018

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about

Bill Lloyd Kendal, UK

Bill Lloyd is a folk singer and multi-instrumentalist from the Lake District in northern England. He plays 5 string banjo and Galician gaita bagpipes, uilleann pipes and whistles, He is a versatile singer in the ‘high lonesome’ mountain style, delicate ballads, and ‘come-all-ye’ folk styles. Bill is an experienced storyteller, compere, music promoter, record producer and festival organiser. ... more

billlloyd.co.uk

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