Wishbone Ash - Lady Jay
Wishbone Ash - Lady Jay


Wishbone Ash - Lady Jay Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: There's the Rub
Released: 1974

Lady Jay Lyrics


Hear me when I cry,
Listen to my song
The jay, my lovely lady,
To the earth she did belong.

I can't trace her,
Lost her from my life,
But the manor lady's bright young son
Can take her for his wife.

Under the forest branches
She came to me,
Until the day she cried aloud
A father I should be.

That was the last time that we met,
I never saw her again,
For she took her life on princeton wharf
To save my worthy name.

She found death's open arms
And lay in them in grace
I watched as icy fingers
Clawed her lovely face.

Now I stumble through the mist
To where they laid her in the grave,
And maybe I'll remember
The flowers for my days.

Far beyond the sand
I will take your hand,
The spirit of our love will live forever.
Far beyond the clouds
We will laugh aloud,
The spirit of our love will live again.
Writer/s: ANDY POWELL, LAURIE WISEFIELD, MARTIN TURNER, STEVEN UPTON
Publisher: Peermusic Publishing
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Lady Jay
  • This was inspired by a grave on Dartmoor; there is a photograph of it in Blowin' Free , the official biography of the band. Check out the grave in Song Images.
  • Bass player Martin Turner explained that in days of yore there was a young peasant girl who got pregnant by the son of the Lord of the Manor. When they couldn't marry she committed suicide. At that time, suicide was regarded as a sin, and suicides couldn't be buried in consecrated ground. After that, her lover used to travel there every day and place fresh flowers on her grave. Legend has it that when he died, fresh flowers continued to appear there every day and still do today.
  • Turner visited the grave with some friends on a windy winter's night and found it "A very weird, spooky experience".
  • Most versions of the story are far less sympathetic to the girl's lover than the one apparently heard by Martin Turner. Kitty Jay is said to have been seduced or even to have beep raped by a farmer's son who then abandoned her, and the flowers which are left on her grave are said to be placed there by "piskies" - Cornish fairies.