"The Snows They Melt the Soonest" (Roud 3154) is an English folk song dating back at least as far as 1821. It was mentioned, along with the lyrics, in Blackwood's Magazine (Edinburgh) of that year.

History

The melody was printed in Bruce and Stokoe's Northumbrian Minstrelsy in 1882, which also mentioned its publication in 1821 and noted that the contributor of the song was Thomas Doubleday (1790–1870), who put it to a melody ("My Love is Newly Listed") learned from a Newcastle street singer. Thomas Doubleday was a radical agitator who often contributed to Blackwood's. The singer Anne Briggs first popularized the song in the 1960s and recorded it in 1971. It was later learned by Archie Fisher who passed it on to Dick Gaughan. Gaughan recorded it on his Handful of Earth album, the success of which further popularized the song. The song was used in the 2008 BBC adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles'

Lyrics

The original lyrics as printed in Blackwood's Magazine, 1821, are:

Recordings

Being a well-documented song publicised by English Folk Dance and Song Society, and Mainly Norfolk, the song was recorded by Jon Boden and Oli Steadman for inclusion in their respective lists of daily folk songs "A Folk Song A Day" and "365 Days Of Folk".