Music Blog

May Queen

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

This week at Glyn Wilton’s Mixed Music Bag,
he’s asking us to write about a song in which
the title or a line mentions the current month. 
Here’s my featured May artist and his song.

© Facebook

Robert Plant first sang of the May Queen on Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven”, when he sang, “It’s just a spring clean for the May Queen”. You may recall I featured “Stairway To Heaven” last week for MMB. “May Queen” was released on Plant’s album Carry Fire which was released in October, 2018.

Who is the May Queen Robert Plant sings about in today’s song and in  “Stairway to Heaven”? According to Quora, the May Queen is the personification of Spring and the center of English folk festivities such as dancing the May Pole. The ‘bustle in the hedgerow’ is the natural world preparing for Spring, and is nothing to be concerned about … unless you believe the definition of ‘bustle in the hedgerow’ is to be sexually aroused.

The May Queen is a symbol of the stillness of nature around which the world revolves; she stands for purity, strength, fertility and potential for growth. It is said the May Queen brings blossoming and growth of new life.

In the British Isles and parts of the Commonwealth, the May Queen or Queen of May is a personification of the May Day holiday of May 1st, and of Springtime and the coming growing season. The May Queen is a girl who rides or walks at the front of a parade for May Day Celebrations.

Carry Fire is Robert Plant’s 11th solo studio album released on 13 October 2017 on Nonesuch/Warner Bros. Records. It was also his 2nd studio album with his backing band, the Sensational Space Shifters. The album was honored as the best selling UK Americana album at the 2018 UK Americana Awards.

This is “The May Queen” by Robert Plant


LYRICS

Lay down in sweet surrender
Your love so warm and tender
(Oh, oh, oh)
Oh, sweet surrender, now
(Oh, oh, oh)
So warm and tender, now
(Ah, ah, ah)
I know, oh oh oh
Inside my waves are breaking
(Oh, oh)
All light of my salvation
(Oh, oh)
Oh, my waves are breaking now
(Oh, oh, oh)
Ooh, sweet salvation now
(Oh, oh, oh)
Oh oh oh, oh oh oh oh, oh oh

I’m seeking love and glory
This is what I always do
The bottom of the freedom
I’m really there with you

Out here the fire still burning
So long into my night
Still captive and still yearning
Surrender to your light
And a heart that never falters
A love that never dies
I linger in the shadows
The dimming of my light
(Oh!)
The dimming of my light
The dimming of my light
The dimming of my light (oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh)

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Justin Alexander Adams/Liam Tyson/John Baggott/William Fuller/Robert Anthony Plant
The May Queen lyrics © Sons Of Einion Limited

Mixed Music Bag 2025 – May this be Jimi

Big thanks to Glyn Wilton for hosting Mixed Music Bag each week. Please be sure to follow the link and check out Glyn’s site.

Thanks for joining me today and spinning some tunes.

See you on the flip side. 😎

NAR©2025

All text, graphics and videos are copyright for Nancy’s Notes 🖊️🎶, The Sicilian Storyteller, The Elephant’s Trunk, and The Rhythm Section, et. al., and are not to be used without permission. NAR©2017-present.

29 thoughts on “May Queen”

  6. I’m going out on a limb here, and saying that Sir Robert absolutely meant “roll in the hay” with the phrase “bustle in the hedgerow”… the whole deal, not just arousal.

    In Britain, especially in rural communities, Beltane (May Day) was the fertility and fire festival you described. This included something called “greenwood marriages” or temporary “couplings” that often occurred out in a natural setting such as a field, woods, or… hedgerow. The inevitable children that resulted were not then typically stigmatized for being illegitimate, as they would be in later times. They might be given their own surnames of MacBeatha, Bealtan, or Greenwood. 🙂 :taking my nerd hat off now to listen to some Led Zepplin:

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    1. Fabulous bit of info which make perfectly lusty sense to me. I’d like to have a sit down with Sir Robert and ask him myself; after all, he did spray my body with his sweat so I think a proper sit down is in order. 😅

      Thank you, M! 🤘🏼

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  7. Sorry Nancy, my mind still wrestling with ‘bustling in the hedgerow’, … hard to concentrate on something else… but I will, right…, just off to play the music and get my mind or something else, catch you later, …💫🎶💫💙💫🎶💫

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  8. A great choice for Glyn’s prompt! And with all that English folk tradition behind the song it was appropriate to have one of our top guys – Seth Lakeman – playing violin on it 👍

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      1. It’s from a very good album! I’ve seen Seth in concert so he was easily spotted. He has had a fair bit of success in our album charts, and his shows are lively affairs. He’s popular with the ladies: he appeared on a tv show hosted by Sharon Osborne and after his band had played she gave him a full on kiss. He looked surprised!

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