Goose and Common - Video and Lyrics

My setting of the traditional poem "Goose and Common". The verse lyrics originate in the 17th or 18th century, and I wrote the chorus lyric ("Who remembers when...?") myself as an addition in 2023. I wrote the music for all of it, and released the work under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license.

I released it on YouTube as a video featuring two voices and two violas in March 2023, but I haven't released an audio recording as yet (March 2025).

A version was recorded by Karine Polwart and uploaded to Instagram in February 2025, followed by an adaption by Sadhbh O'Sullivan, who added additional verses to the lyric.

So now it is very much undergoing the folk process!

Lyrics

The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common,
But leaves the greater villain loose
Who steals the common from the goose.

Chorus: Who remembers when, who remembers how
The crimes committed then became the laws that bind us now?

The law demands that we atone
When we take things we do not own,
But leaves the lords and ladies fine
Who take things that are yours and mine.

The poor and wretched don't escape
If they conspire the law to break.
This must be so, but they endure
Those who conspire to make the law.

The law locks up the man or woman
Who steals the goose from off the common,
But geese will still a common lack
Until they go and steal it back.

Verse lyrics: traditional
Chorus lyrics + all music: Helen Bell

Creative Commons License:
Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)