
Hot on the heels of the debut of Ellen’s first archival release, “Went To the Sea,” we are happy to share another new tune—well, not new, but vintage and never-before-heard, newly remastered for your listening pleasure. “Free Goodwill” was recorded at a rehearsal in 1968. As far as Ellen and her team are aware, this is the only known recording of this arrangement.
Ellen writes about the history of the song and her performance of it below, but please give a listen to the Bandcamp link first:
“Free Goodwill” is available on streaming platforms including YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and iHeart Radio by following this link to Ellen’s DistroKid page. To purchase a download of “Went To the Sea,” visit Ellen’s BandCamp page at ellenstekert.bandcamp.com. For updates about further new releases, please follow Ellen’s Spotify or Apple Music profiles, or check back on the Music & Performing page here at her website. Also, follow @ellenstekert on Instagram for updates and interesting stories about Ellen’s life.
About the song
Ellen writes: “I first ran across this lyric in Cecil Sharp’s 1918 collection of Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians (Volume II, p. 269). Sharp titled it ‘I Love my Love’. Interestingly, he makes no reference to other versions of the song, nor does Alan Lomax in his later collection, The Penguin Book of American Folk Songs (1946, p. 45), where Lomax actually only reprints the Sharp version.
“This version of the song ‘Sharp Prints’, which he attributes to a Mrs. Ellen Webb of North Carolina, is a small gem with a lyrical flowing melody and austere poignant verses that contain numerous floating phrases from British lyric tradition. I found the song sometime in the 1950s and sang it in programs numerous times. I even sent a recorded rendition that I did of it to a well-known performer in the 1970s, but nowhere else did I find versions of it.
“The trail of tradition for this song was invisible to me and as I finished my studies and gained a Ph.D. never finding a trace of it, I began to think that Cecil Sharp may have composed it himself and slipped it into his marvelous collection of songs. However, now I favor the theory that Mrs. Ellen Webb might well have composed the song herself or at least creatively chose to perpetuate it by singing it for Sharp. (The people in the mountains realized that Cecil Sharp was there to collect songs and ‘preserve’ them.)
“The words Ellen Webb sings, as found in the Southern Mountain collection, are those of a lover who declares love for a woman. Now, It is not unusual for women singers in the Anglo-American tradition to sing songs in which a man is the protagonist, or for men to sing songs in which a woman is the voice in the text. However, in this case, where ‘All my friends fell out with me because I kept my love’s company,’ the song might well be speaking of a same-sex relationship, which would have accounted for the ‘I’ of the song having ‘fallen out’ of the company of her peers. Indeed, in the early 1900s in the Appalachians, such a same-sex relationship would have been taboo, I would venture that this might well be one of the few cases of a lyric being collected by Cecil Sharp that speaks of same-sex love.
“Interestingly, when I sang the song, as you hear it now from the early 1960s, I changed Ellen Webb’s pronouns and sang it as though it were being sung to a male lover. The concert culture to which I performed never noted my ‘closet version’ (as I call it today), and the beauty of the melody and the text still conveyed the intensity of the piece, regardless of who wrote it for whom…which is how I hope it will be heard today.”
Lyrics
All my friends fell out with me
Because I kept my love’s company
But let them say or do what they will
I love my love with a free goodwill
Over the mountain, I must go
Because my fortune is so low
With an aching heart and a troubled mind
For leaving my true love behind
The moon above looks down and see
The parting of true love and me
It’s as hard to part the moon and sky
As it is to part true love and I
When I have gold, he has his part
When I have none, he has my heart
And he won it too with a free goodwill
And upon my honor, I love him still
The winter’s passed, and the summer’s come
The trees are blooming one by one
And if my true love chooses for to stay
I’ll stay with him ’till the break of day
For all my friends fell out with me
Because I kept my love’s company
But let them say or do what they will
I love my love with a free goodwill
Credits
Released January 31, 2025
Perfomer: Ellen Stekert
Composer: Traditional
Producer: Ross Wylde
Production Assistant: Bates Detwiler
Editorial & Publicity Manager: Christopher Bahn