can anyone recommend a few tunes relating somehow to the great famine...or agriculture?? preferably an easy one in the keys of D, A or G. thanks in advance.
-lindsay
A beautiful tune is 'The Hungry Rock' , played by Dervish. It's a composition of one of the Dervish members and can be found on the 'Live in Palma' album, preceded by a short explanation of the title.
Not a tune, but an extremely moving song, recorded my Mick Maloney in 1985: "Drimin Donn Dilis (The Dear Brown Cow) .
Here is an excerpt from the sleeve notes:
One of the many allegorical names for Ireland in the mid-nineteenth cnetury Irish and political verse and song was 'The Dear Brown Cow", not an unusual symbol when one considers the importance of the cow in the small family land holdings of the day. ..The words, depicting the misery of a native of Derry, who was born in 1803 and died in Cork in 1850." Lindsay: let me know if you need more info on this song.
That quoted, the recording puts me in tears at times. Basically a full story of being put out of ones home, burning with fever, and having to give up a family companion/animal/pet. That's sad enough, but read into this having to give up your country and home, never to see it again.
Now I wouldn't expect any 'tunes" to cover the famine, but would look to airs for that.
And of course it doesn't really take much searching to find agricultural themes in tunes. ( Actually how many of them aren't?- I think that is more rare).
What I've been hearing lately is also the theme that the tunes are given these lovely country/agricultural themes because they "harken back to a simpler way of life". I guess the logical bridge to make is the homesickness of a large population who left their native home and ended up in large cities all over the globe.
And this during a period of (19th century) industrialization and urbanization, and during the 20th and 21st centuries technological revolution which we are part of... Oops- there goes my love of history again.
Maybe that is one of the appeals that this music has for many of us: for me it is a direct link to that "simpler" way of life, and to past generations.
'The battering ram' is a famine tune. Battering rams were used to knock down doors during the evictions. I like to think you can hear it in the tune, but then it just might be my vivid imagination.
famine tunes
famine tunes
can anyone recommend a few tunes relating somehow to the great famine...or agriculture?? preferably an easy one in the keys of D, A or G. thanks in advance.
-lindsay
# Posted on November 5th 2002 by Lindsay
Re: famine tunes
you could play Gavotte it is pretty easy are you just starting?
# Posted on November 5th 2002 by baby ~A~
Re: famine tunes
A beautiful tune is 'The Hungry Rock' , played by Dervish. It's a composition of one of the Dervish members and can be found on the 'Live in Palma' album, preceded by a short explanation of the title.
# Posted on November 5th 2002 by Henk Bos
Re: famine tunes
Not a tune, but an extremely moving song, recorded my Mick Maloney in 1985: "Drimin Donn Dilis (The Dear Brown Cow) .
Here is an excerpt from the sleeve notes:
One of the many allegorical names for Ireland in the mid-nineteenth cnetury Irish and political verse and song was 'The Dear Brown Cow", not an unusual symbol when one considers the importance of the cow in the small family land holdings of the day. ..The words, depicting the misery of a native of Derry, who was born in 1803 and died in Cork in 1850." Lindsay: let me know if you need more info on this song.
That quoted, the recording puts me in tears at times. Basically a full story of being put out of ones home, burning with fever, and having to give up a family companion/animal/pet. That's sad enough, but read into this having to give up your country and home, never to see it again.
Now I wouldn't expect any 'tunes" to cover the famine, but would look to airs for that.
And of course it doesn't really take much searching to find agricultural themes in tunes. ( Actually how many of them aren't?- I think that is more rare).
What I've been hearing lately is also the theme that the tunes are given these lovely country/agricultural themes because they "harken back to a simpler way of life". I guess the logical bridge to make is the homesickness of a large population who left their native home and ended up in large cities all over the globe.
And this during a period of (19th century) industrialization and urbanization, and during the 20th and 21st centuries technological revolution which we are part of... Oops- there goes my love of history again.
Maybe that is one of the appeals that this music has for many of us: for me it is a direct link to that "simpler" way of life, and to past generations.
# Posted on November 6th 2002 by lees
Re: famine tunes
'The battering ram' is a famine tune. Battering rams were used to knock down doors during the evictions. I like to think you can hear it in the tune, but then it just might be my vivid imagination.
# Posted on November 12th 2002 by Jill