page_title: Dark Fields (album)
section_title: Music and lyrics
hierarchical_section_title: Dark Fields (album) / Music and lyrics
caption_attribution_description: English: map of "Wessex" of Thomas Hardy's novels
context_page_description: Dark Fields is the sixth studio album by English acoustic roots duo Show of Hands, released in 1997 on their own label Hands on Music. The album follows the duo's 1996 performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, a performance which raised their profile. A live album of the performance was released as Live at the Royal Albert Hall in August, becoming the band's best selling album. The duo followed the success with Dark Fields.
  Recorded in St Merryn, Dark Fields features Knightley's characteristic West Country-focused lyrics and a "live" sound carried over from their previous studio release Lie of the Land. The album was released in May 1997, received positive reviews from critics. The band also released a single from the album, "Crazy Boy", which was the band's first single.
context_section_description: The duo co-produced Dark Fields with manager Steve O'Farrell who produced Lie of the Land and Live at the Royal Albert Hall, and recorded it at Joe Partridge's Airfield studios in St Merryn, Cornwall, with the studio commencing recording here due to Knightley's pleasant experience when working on a Mike Silver album at the studio several years prior. Knightley later commented that, "wonderfully equipped and utterly secluded, [the duo] locked themselves away for a week or so" to record the album.
  One reviewer noted that "the majority of the subjects [on the album] peopling "Dark Fields" exude Englishness. On one hand there are the misfits - hedonistic teenager, dyed-in-the-wool poacher. Another hand highlights slave traders or recruiting sergeants - murky historical characters trapped by their time. On the third hand, the West Country's exiled miners and heroic emergency servants are given the benefit of Knightley's sympathetic pen. And on the final hand, leavening the proceedings, there are a brace of unrequited love-stories and a terrifyingly competent tune set." Knightley noted in 2007 that the album's production was generally based on the duo's live sound, despite being "more rounded", and also noted that "many of the songs on this album are still concert standards".
  "Cousin Jack", the opening track, remains one of the duo's best known and most performed songs. The song is about the Cornish miners of the Cornish diaspora. Many Cornish people were known as "Cousin Jacks". The fourth track is a "Wessex Medley". The twelfth track, "High Germany/Molly Oxford", was recorded live at Norwich in spring 1997. It is the first time the duo included a live performance on a studio album. Over half of the tracks on the album are Steve Knightley compositions, the others traditional pieces arranged by the duo, other than a cover version of Bob Dylan's "Farewell Angelina" and Nic Jones' arrangement of "Warlike Lads of Russia", a track described by one reviewer as "just the kind of blatant altruism which Zimmerman of Hibbing notably omitted to display a few years back." "The Bristol Slaver" is about the Bristol slave trade and "Crazy Boy" is about a "bored teenager", whilst "Longdog" is about poachers and "The Shout" is about voluntary emergency services.
  The album features numerous guest musicians. Chris While, of Beer's former band The Albion Band, sings vocals on the song "Dark Fields". Matt Clifford also plays keyboards on that track and three others. For the "Wessex Medley", a medley that first consists of Beer's composition "Carrick Roads", then "Plum Pudding", a traditional piece arranged by Knightley and Beer, and finally Beer's "The Rocky Road to Chudleigh", melodeon was provided by Simon Care. The seventh song, "Flora", features percussion by Joe Partridge and backing vocals from Lucy Watkins, Richard Hammond and Paul Banham who also sing backing vocals on "The Shout". The live track, "High Germany"/"Molly Oxford", features vocals from Kate Rusby, fiddle from Chris Wood and melodeon from Andy Cutting.
  Of the duo, Steve Knightley sings all lead vocals, as well as playing guitar, cuatro, mandocello, concertina, acoustic bass guitar and mandolin on the album. Meanwhile, Phil Beer sings other vocals and plays guitars, mandolin, fiddle, cuatro, viola and mandocello. This album marks the first two appearances of the song "The Train" on a Show of Hands studio album. Firstly appearing as the album's sixth track, it is featured again in the form of a ten-minute reprise as a hidden track following ten minutes of silence after "High Germany" / "Molly Oxford", the last track on the album. It is the first of three hidden tracks by the duo. The band's following album, Folk music features a new combination of the song with "Blackwaterside". The band's 2002 live album, Cold Cuts features another new combination of the song with "Sit You Down". The band's 2005 live album, As You Were features a new medley which features "The Train" followed by "Santiago" and "The Soldier's Joy".
caption: A map of locations in Wessex. Wessex is the subject matter of the album's "Wessex Medley".
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