Thought this was kind of amusing. I'm one of those reality TV addicts, and so last night I was watching the season finale of the grandpappy of all reality shows, "Survivor" All Stars edition. This show was filmed in the Pearl Islands off the coast of Panama, and so the last thing I was expecting to hear was Irish music. However, towards the end of the show as the camera was kind of panning over the island, you hear a whistle clearly playing an Irish tune. I think the producers intended it to sound like pirate music or something, but it was clearly Irish. I don't remember what tune it was, but it was a common one. Anywho, I just thought it was kind of funny to see Irish music be used in such an unlikely place, and thought people on this site might see some amusement as I did.
ok, so I have to admit it I watched it (forced to by my family and neighbours...) The tune was "Carolan's Concerto" played on tin whistle in an almost hornpipe-like setting. A bit strange, but a nice surprise.
That's right. I do recall turning to my friend last night and mentioning how the tune was written by a blind harpist, information I'm sure my friend was dying to know . Couldn't put a finger on the exact name at the time though, so thanks grego.
I once watched a documentary about the native people of the Amazon rainforest. While some folks were paddling a canoe down the river, the background music was "The Dunmore Lassies" played very slowly on a low-D whistle.
Anybody else out there care to piggyback off this post and share any bizarre places where they've seen or heard Irish music? Also, why would production companies even resort to such a ploy? Is it simply because of commercial value, i.e. people are more apt to recognize Irish music than pirate music (in the case of Survivor)? Dunno. What does anybody else think?
No comments on your viewer's habits, don't worry Dave.
I saw a woman fiddle player on TV Classic FM who played a weird version of Star of the County Down with variations and some dreadful backbeat, and the credits said that she composed it!
By the way, I missed that episode - who got put off?
Nah, joking - but I did follow the early UK big brother series -- only the friday editions when you could see and gloat over the evictions -- but that was at a time when I worked in this kinda open plan office - everyone sat at their respective PC doing image analysis and we had the most camp gay guy (who was incredibly bright but never wrote up his PhD) who knew every nuance of every person on and had us all creasing with laughter at his exhibition theatrical performances - egged on of course by all the other office members -- plus a 5ft nothing tyke of a divorcee of 49 years vintage who had decided she would sleep never again with a white man - hence she trawled the black clubs from Hackney to Streatham in search of the stereotypical big boy...monday mornings comprised of a Blow by Blow account of her weekends goings on...after me sessioning to god knows what time and dragging my weary carcass in for yet another weeks stereology....thank god I used to still be not quite of this world till my lunch time run.
Which leads me on to bad Monday mornings...apart from shuttering, first thing 7.30am monday on a winter's morning...please tell me someone a worse way to spend your monday morning....there's always surgical "Chuck out" - at St. George's - and if you're the locum MLSO, you fill in for everyone else during the holidays - and yes, I used to have a session, involving free beers, the night before..... Chuck out involved disposing of the organs, removed from autopsy or biopsy (usually post cancer surgery), which had remained, in formalin, on the shelf for 6 weeks. You wear steel gloves and you use a large surgical knife to puncture the base of the plastic dissection pot. the formalin trickles out. then you dispose of the offending resultant organ by putting it in the macerator. Another time I was present at the PM of an attractive young Irish red-headed lady who had died of CJD - I took her brain back for CJD verification and analysis.Many of the readers out there may well be nurses - but at least you dealt with living people...anyway, I just do straight research these days -- so long as you don't mind drosophila.
I've been retired for a while so I don't have bad Monday mornings any more, but I had an interesting one the other week.
My wife works in a psychiatric hospital just outside Bristol (Barrow Hospital - you might know of it, Danny), and I occasionally take her to work in the car. I dropped her off outside the ward where she works and drove off round the hospital's inner circuit road which surrounds a beautiful area of woodland (watch out for deer wandering around). On the far side of the circuit road I was brought to a sudden halt by this apparition in the middle of the road - an old woman was standing there watching me. Honestly, she could have been from central casting for The Night of the Living Dead. I didn't dare attempt to drive round her in case she moved in front of me. so I had to stop. Then she started to shamble slowly towards me
I was flipping through the channels and came across some TV show...no idea what it was...never seen it before. The characters were in a bar...and somewhere in the bar, there was definitely a session going on...they were playing a jig set as I remember...both tunes I heard were ones I recognized but now I can't recall what they are now.
What concerns Irish music substituting pirate stuff, it's just the opposite in here. If you frequent concerts of a lesser-known Irish music groups (like "The Irish Connection", God forgive them), you'll find out that they are actually playing sailor's music and shanties. And mostly Irish songs, self-translated to Polish. Gives you toothache. Not many "Irish music groups" can live without an electrobass and percussion set/bonga drums/ bodhran played in a "merry tourist" style.
Well, Crysania I think I've found the name of the tunes you were so specific about, one was Geese in the bog and the other Gan ainm - unfortunely, I forget the name of the show.
So Janek, what's a gallant young soldier and a yellow haired fair maiden in Polish?
Cath, the most popular in here is The Star of the County Down, which translates as "Gwiazda z powiatu Down" and "The Wild Rover", which goes as "Juz nie wroce na morze". Gallant young soldier... I think they didn't go that far...
Especially for you, I cite below a bit of "The star of..".
Gwiazda z powiatu Down
Białej mewy krzyk ucho pieścił mi,
Chłodny wiatr zapach morza niósł.
Poprzez zieleń traw, gdzieś od Bainbridge Town
Zobaczyłem ją pierwszy raz.
Ach piękna tak, kiedy bosa szła,
Czarowała uśmiechem swym.
Zwinna niby elf, zakochałem się
W rudowłosej Rose McCann.
Chorus:
Od Bantry Bay aż do Derry Quay
I od Galway do Dublin Town
Najpiękniejsza jest, każdy zgodzi się,
Moja Rosie z powiatu Down
[story continued] and then started to fumble with the door on the passenger side. I set the central locking in some haste.
What was I to do? There was no one around - the staff were presumably all at shift hand-overs, and if I attempted to get out of the car to get help then I'd have to unset the central locking and she'd be able to get in on the other side. Driving off was out of the question because of the real possibility of injuring this patient. And then I started to recollect some of the more lurid scenes from the Stephen King novels ...
Fortunately, at that moment a small white van came round the corner towards me and had to stop. This distracted the old lady and she turned away from my car and started to shuffle towards the van, thereby becoming an SEP. When she was a few yards away I reversed smartly, turned round and drove the other way round the circuit road to the exit.
When my wife got home from shift later that day I told her about it. She laughed and said some patients were allowed to wander around outside thw ward buildings. The old lady was probably quite harmless, she said, and only wanted to be taken home (wherever that was). "Probably" indeed!
Janek,
Thank you for your contribution, the translation to the wild rover looks a bit rude!
If you think Irish songs translated into Polish are atrocious, try rock and roll tranlated into French - it makes my skin crawl thinking about it, or opera lyrics translated from Italian into English (yuk!). And of course there are some folk songs sung in their own language which sometimes have such silly words, you wish they were sung in a foreign language, just so that you could enjoy the sound without cringing at their meaning (which is why I mentioned daft stuff like 'a fair maiden' 'a gallant soldier' etc... I can't stand those').
Cheers
one of my favourites was hearing "Calliope House" on Sex & the City. It was in a scene when Charlotte and her husband Trey (who was supposedly scottish or something) were getting back together. I annoyed the hell out of my girlfriends by pausing the video and learning the tune right there, because I was reminded of how much I liked it.
Dances WS's... your anecdote is a perfect example of how an obsession with ITM can break up families and destroy relationships. You might have to enter a 12-step program to properly deal with this you realize.
Oh... and I should add that if you're watching a video with a title that includes the word "sex" and you're with your girlfriend, and instead of thinking about sex, you're thinking about ITM tunes and stopping to learn them... I really don't need to point out the obvious problem with this scenario do I? You really should seek professional help I think... just a suggestion.
Right... and it should be noted that DWW said, "I annoyed the hell out of my girlfriends." So here's a guy who's watching a video about sex and he's not with just one girlfriend - but two or more possibly - and he's feckin learning a tune! This is very serious.
I am in fact a lady who dances with swords, on an all-lady sword team. However, it was originally an all-male tradition.
I don't think the girlfriends and I would be watching Sex & the City with boyfriends, if we had them. And I would hazard a guess that my propensity to stop videos and learn tunes might be just the kind of thing that would lead to a lack of romance, or ANY HUMAN RELATIONSHIP for that matter. (Except with my family, as we are mercifully able to relate to each other on the musical level. But I can't date them.) So there you go!
Irish music on Survivor
Irish music on Survivor
Thought this was kind of amusing. I'm one of those reality TV addicts, and so last night I was watching the season finale of the grandpappy of all reality shows, "Survivor" All Stars edition. This show was filmed in the Pearl Islands off the coast of Panama, and so the last thing I was expecting to hear was Irish music. However, towards the end of the show as the camera was kind of panning over the island, you hear a whistle clearly playing an Irish tune. I think the producers intended it to sound like pirate music or something, but it was clearly Irish. I don't remember what tune it was, but it was a common one. Anywho, I just thought it was kind of funny to see Irish music be used in such an unlikely place, and thought people on this site might see some amusement as I did.
Jason
# Posted on May 10th 2004 by Jason G
Re: Irish music on Survivor
Pirate music? As long as it wasn't The Trumpet Hornpipe!
# Posted on May 10th 2004 by John J.
Re: Irish music on Survivor
ok, so I have to admit it I watched it (forced to by my family and neighbours...) The tune was "Carolan's Concerto" played on tin whistle in an almost hornpipe-like setting. A bit strange, but a nice surprise.
# Posted on May 10th 2004 by grego
Re: Irish music on Survivor
That's right. I do recall turning to my friend last night and mentioning how the tune was written by a blind harpist, information I'm sure my friend was dying to know
. Couldn't put a finger on the exact name at the time though, so thanks grego.
Jason
# Posted on May 10th 2004 by Jason G
Incongruous Irish tunes on the telly.
I once watched a documentary about the native people of the Amazon rainforest. While some folks were paddling a canoe down the river, the background music was "The Dunmore Lassies" played very slowly on a low-D whistle.
# Posted on May 10th 2004 by grego
Any other bizarre places?
Anybody else out there care to piggyback off this post and share any bizarre places where they've seen or heard Irish music? Also, why would production companies even resort to such a ploy? Is it simply because of commercial value, i.e. people are more apt to recognize Irish music than pirate music (in the case of Survivor)? Dunno. What does anybody else think?
Jason
# Posted on May 10th 2004 by Jason G
Re: Irish music on Survivor
Gah, O'Carolan's Concerto!!!
# Posted on May 10th 2004 by armandale
Re: Irish music on Survivor
there was julia delaney's on the midsomer murders last friday.
no comments about viewer habits,please!
# Posted on May 10th 2004 by biggus dave
Re: Irish music on Survivor
No comments on your viewer's habits, don't worry Dave.
I saw a woman fiddle player on TV Classic FM who played a weird version of Star of the County Down with variations and some dreadful backbeat, and the credits said that she composed it!
# Posted on May 10th 2004 by Cath
Re: Irish music on Survivor
You sad bunch of b@$t@rd$!
By the way, I missed that episode - who got put off?
Nah, joking - but I did follow the early UK big brother series -- only the friday editions when you could see and gloat over the evictions -- but that was at a time when I worked in this kinda open plan office - everyone sat at their respective PC doing image analysis and we had the most camp gay guy (who was incredibly bright but never wrote up his PhD) who knew every nuance of every person on and had us all creasing with laughter at his exhibition theatrical performances - egged on of course by all the other office members -- plus a 5ft nothing tyke of a divorcee of 49 years vintage who had decided she would sleep never again with a white man - hence she trawled the black clubs from Hackney to Streatham in search of the stereotypical big boy...monday mornings comprised of a Blow by Blow account of her weekends goings on...after me sessioning to god knows what time and dragging my weary carcass in for yet another weeks stereology....thank god I used to still be not quite of this world till my lunch time run.
Which leads me on to bad Monday mornings...apart from shuttering, first thing 7.30am monday on a winter's morning...please tell me someone a worse way to spend your monday morning....there's always surgical "Chuck out" - at St. George's - and if you're the locum MLSO, you fill in for everyone else during the holidays - and yes, I used to have a session, involving free beers, the night before..... Chuck out involved disposing of the organs, removed from autopsy or biopsy (usually post cancer surgery), which had remained, in formalin, on the shelf for 6 weeks. You wear steel gloves and you use a large surgical knife to puncture the base of the plastic dissection pot. the formalin trickles out. then you dispose of the offending resultant organ by putting it in the macerator. Another time I was present at the PM of an attractive young Irish red-headed lady who had died of CJD - I took her brain back for CJD verification and analysis.Many of the readers out there may well be nurses - but at least you dealt with living people...anyway, I just do straight research these days -- so long as you don't mind drosophila.
# Posted on May 10th 2004 by Rudall the time
Re: Irish music on Survivor
I've been retired for a while so I don't have bad Monday mornings any more, but I had an interesting one the other week.
My wife works in a psychiatric hospital just outside Bristol (Barrow Hospital - you might know of it, Danny), and I occasionally take her to work in the car. I dropped her off outside the ward where she works and drove off round the hospital's inner circuit road which surrounds a beautiful area of woodland (watch out for deer wandering around). On the far side of the circuit road I was brought to a sudden halt by this apparition in the middle of the road - an old woman was standing there watching me. Honestly, she could have been from central casting for The Night of the Living Dead. I didn't dare attempt to drive round her in case she moved in front of me. so I had to stop. Then she started to shamble slowly towards me
Trevor
# Posted on May 10th 2004 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Irish music on Survivor
I was flipping through the channels and came across some TV show...no idea what it was...never seen it before. The characters were in a bar...and somewhere in the bar, there was definitely a session going on...they were playing a jig set as I remember...both tunes I heard were ones I recognized but now I can't recall what they are now.
# Posted on May 10th 2004 by Crysania
Re: Irish music on Survivor
Brilliant Fatwha
I came to work this morning pi$$ed off, but now I'm really happy to be here. You made me realise its a feckin great job.
Cheers
Conrad
# Posted on May 10th 2004 by darnoc
Re: Irish music on Survivor
Drosophiles... I hate sexual freaks...
What concerns Irish music substituting pirate stuff, it's just the opposite in here. If you frequent concerts of a lesser-known Irish music groups (like "The Irish Connection", God forgive them), you'll find out that they are actually playing sailor's music and shanties. And mostly Irish songs, self-translated to Polish. Gives you toothache. Not many "Irish music groups" can live without an electrobass and percussion set/bonga drums/ bodhran played in a "merry tourist" style.
# Posted on May 10th 2004 by Janek
Re: Irish music on Survivor
Well, Crysania I think I've found the name of the tunes you were so specific about, one was Geese in the bog and the other Gan ainm - unfortunely, I forget the name of the show.
So Janek, what's a gallant young soldier and a yellow haired fair maiden in Polish?
# Posted on May 11th 2004 by Cath
Re: Irish music on Survivor
Cath, the most popular in here is The Star of the County Down, which translates as "Gwiazda z powiatu Down" and "The Wild Rover", which goes as "Juz nie wroce na morze". Gallant young soldier... I think they didn't go that far...
Especially for you, I cite below a bit of "The star of..".
Gwiazda z powiatu Down
Białej mewy krzyk ucho pieścił mi,
Chłodny wiatr zapach morza niósł.
Poprzez zieleń traw, gdzieś od Bainbridge Town
Zobaczyłem ją pierwszy raz.
Ach piękna tak, kiedy bosa szła,
Czarowała uśmiechem swym.
Zwinna niby elf, zakochałem się
W rudowłosej Rose McCann.
Chorus:
Od Bantry Bay aż do Derry Quay
I od Galway do Dublin Town
Najpiękniejsza jest, każdy zgodzi się,
Moja Rosie z powiatu Down
Enjoy!
Janek
# Posted on May 11th 2004 by Janek
Re: Irish music on Survivor
shucks, I forgot this website does not support Polish letters...
I apologize.
Janek
# Posted on May 11th 2004 by Janek
Re: Irish music on Survivor
[story continued] and then started to fumble with the door on the passenger side. I set the central locking in some haste.
What was I to do? There was no one around - the staff were presumably all at shift hand-overs, and if I attempted to get out of the car to get help then I'd have to unset the central locking and she'd be able to get in on the other side. Driving off was out of the question because of the real possibility of injuring this patient. And then I started to recollect some of the more lurid scenes from the Stephen King novels ...
Fortunately, at that moment a small white van came round the corner towards me and had to stop. This distracted the old lady and she turned away from my car and started to shuffle towards the van, thereby becoming an SEP. When she was a few yards away I reversed smartly, turned round and drove the other way round the circuit road to the exit.
When my wife got home from shift later that day I told her about it. She laughed and said some patients were allowed to wander around outside thw ward buildings. The old lady was probably quite harmless, she said, and only wanted to be taken home (wherever that was). "Probably" indeed!
Trevor
# Posted on May 11th 2004 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Irish music on Survivor
Janek,
Thank you for your contribution, the translation to the wild rover looks a bit rude!
If you think Irish songs translated into Polish are atrocious, try rock and roll tranlated into French - it makes my skin crawl thinking about it, or opera lyrics translated from Italian into English (yuk!). And of course there are some folk songs sung in their own language which sometimes have such silly words, you wish they were sung in a foreign language, just so that you could enjoy the sound without cringing at their meaning (which is why I mentioned daft stuff like 'a fair maiden' 'a gallant soldier' etc... I can't stand those').
Cheers
# Posted on May 11th 2004 by Cath
Re: Irish music on Survivor
one of my favourites was hearing "Calliope House" on Sex & the City. It was in a scene when Charlotte and her husband Trey (who was supposedly scottish or something) were getting back together. I annoyed the hell out of my girlfriends by pausing the video and learning the tune right there, because I was reminded of how much I liked it.
# Posted on May 14th 2004 by dances with swords
Re: Irish music on Survivor
Dances WS's... your anecdote is a perfect example of how an obsession with ITM can break up families and destroy relationships. You might have to enter a 12-step program to properly deal with this you realize.
# Posted on May 14th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Irish music on Survivor
Oh... and I should add that if you're watching a video with a title that includes the word "sex" and you're with your girlfriend, and instead of thinking about sex, you're thinking about ITM tunes and stopping to learn them... I really don't need to point out the obvious problem with this scenario do I? You really should seek professional help I think... just a suggestion.
# Posted on May 14th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Irish music on Survivor
Right... and it should be noted that DWW said, "I annoyed the hell out of my girlfriends." So here's a guy who's watching a video about sex and he's not with just one girlfriend - but two or more possibly - and he's feckin learning a tune! This is very serious.
# Posted on May 14th 2004 by Phantom Button
Re: Irish music on Survivor
Interesting. How did you determine that DWS is a guy? Don't ladies dance with swords?
# Posted on May 14th 2004 by grego
Re: Irish music on Survivor
Oh God, Grego, NOW you've done it... LOL
# Posted on May 14th 2004 by Zina Lee
Re: Irish music on Survivor
I am in fact a lady who dances with swords, on an all-lady sword team. However, it was originally an all-male tradition.
I don't think the girlfriends and I would be watching Sex & the City with boyfriends, if we had them. And I would hazard a guess that my propensity to stop videos and learn tunes might be just the kind of thing that would lead to a lack of romance, or ANY HUMAN RELATIONSHIP for that matter. (Except with my family, as we are mercifully able to relate to each other on the musical level. But I can't date them.) So there you go!
# Posted on May 20th 2004 by dances with swords