What goes around • Andrew Ford

What goes around • Andrew Ford

“Scarborough Fair” is what Ellen Stekert calls a “go around song,” one that is passed from singer to singer, down centuries, across oceans, shape-shifting all the while. “Go around songs” shed and acquire tunes, lose lines and gain verses; characters change their names and quite often swap genders. Verses familiar from “Scarborough Fair” may be traced back to the seventeenth century but, beyond that, the song’s provenance is anyone’s guess. The …