Go Your Way

Album: Anne Briggs (1971)
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Songfacts®:

  • Composed by influential folk singer Anne Briggs, this wife's troubled farewell song is one of two original tunes she wrote on her 1971 self-titled debut album. She penned "Go Your Way" because "she wasn't seeing enough of someone," and the record's other original composition, "Living by the Water," because she wasn't seeing anything of him at all.
  • Anne Briggs actually wrote the song in the mid-1960s. Her on-off partner, Scottish folk singer Bert Jansch, first recorded it as "Go Your Way My Love" for his Nicola album in 1967. His version is briefer and omits four verses.
  • Robert Plant and Alison Krauss covered the song on their 2021 album Raise the Roof. "I've been singing "Go Your Way" for years, it's such a poignant piece," Plant told Uncut magazine. "I knew Bert to some degree and after he passed we played a memorial in Scotland and I met Anne Briggs and a few people from that scene, and it's a lovely place these people came from."
  • Plant is OK singing from a woman's point of view. "It doesn't matter whether something radically strange has happened to me sexually," he said. "I'm just going to sing the song because it's a beautiful song."
  • Plant and Krauss reunited with their Raising Sand producer, T-Bone Burnett, for Raise The Roof. Burnett played the acoustic guitar on "Go Your Way" as well as producing the track. The other musicians are:

    Bass: Viktor Krauss
    Drums and percussion: Jay Bellerose
    Zither and Celeste: Jeff Taylor
    Pedal Steel Guitar: Russ Pahl
    Electric Guitar: Marc Ribot
    Jarana: David Hidalgo
  • Though Anne Briggs is considered an influential figure in the British folk revival, she never achieved much commercial success. Briggs only recorded a handful of albums and stopped performing in the mid-1970s.

    It was Briggs who taught Jansch the traditional song "Blackwaterside," which he recorded on his Jack Orion album in 1966. Jimmy Page later copied and adapted Jansch's instrumental accompaniment to this song and recorded it as "Black Mountain Side" for Led Zeppelin's 1969 self-titled album.

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