Thanks, and he brings up a good point. Andy remarked on how popular the jigs and reels are in our modern era, but at the cost of traditional song. A subject fitting for more discussion.
Certainly there is a tradition of the use of the tunes, the melodies, to produce songs. Generations often took the tunes and made their own songs, by absorbing and loving the old ones. Singers versed in the tradition, like Tommy Makem from his mother Sarah, created a huge body of unique work and preserved old songs. Andy Irvine has done much the same, just with a different personality, which just shows how well they processed the tradition.
Don't we ask people to do that with tunes, too? We love the great ones that are so versed in it that they can't help but embody the music when they play it, and do so with their own style?
Not the place for this here, maybe like mudcat or something.
I remember hearing for the first time Sandy Denny Singing Who Knows Where the Time Goes on that first Strawbs album and being totally blown away - I was just a teenager. And I'd be really angry if I heard anyone cover it, especially down the boozer. I'd certainly be the fickle friend that left.
Yes, I'm talking about the trad songs really. What right has a middle class affluent guitar strummer got to wail on about the potato famine and being forced off the land.
Yeah, I prefer the ones in Irish, because I don't understand them and can appreciate the musicality in the abstract.
... and it's three times as bad to hear a middle class American, Australian,
etc etc try to sing one of those potato famine / murder ballad /
emigration songs. It's hard enough for me to hear a middle class
Jewish guy from Minnesota sing in that faux-Oklahoma accent .... even
if he is a genius
Personally I do not have a problem with people singing old songs, should it be about the famine or whatever. after all, we have many middle class tune players, and the majority of the tunes have a history as well, perhaps relating to the same topics.
Yeah I guess that's true about the tunes. To be really authentic we
would all have to be Irish or Scottish, doing manual labour or farming -
not much education, lots of heartbreak, no money ... hmmm, I can't play
tunes any more I guess .... :(
Well, the one thing I always say is that people generally tend to forget history in the blink of an eye. Its the one thing that really annoys me about us. I think singing songs of a tradtion about the past is a good thing, there are some things that we should not forget about. Things like war, the days when there was no such thing as a lunch break....etc etc
Hup - lets be honest now - most australians have either immigrated themselves or their parents did. Obviously those ones are ok then to sing about immigrating? No??
I only agree with people singing if they can actually sing, I have no time for howlers.
bb - ha ha -- yes, I am a migrant ... Ahh yes - the reeking hold of
the foul United Airlines 747 ... the rats, the rum, the lash, the pitiful foil
bags of peanuts. They made us get out on the wings and scrub them til
they shone like mirrors ... The new language: 'mid-wicket', 'drongo',
'chicko roll', 'GST' --- I could go on, but I feel a song coming ...
I've been learning some of the Irish ballads. I think in America everyone thinks there's the dozen or so pub songs, either rebel or funny or tear-jerker, and that's about it. I think there's a complexity going on in a lot of the ballads I've encountered that, at the least, far surpasses the syrupy pop or the self-impressed rock of today.
To know some of the history brings them to life, and modern understanding. I don't know the background of many, but i do know Whiskey in the Jar is more than a song about a highwayman. It's about the celebrated heroes who took the money back from that the Crown or her lackeys who stole from the Irish peasants.
And Rocky Road to Dublin, quite frankly, scares the bejesus outta me.
When you sing words, it's vital that you feel them. There is little ambiguity in words (except Dylan).
But tunes are different. You don't have to know where they come from, just how they sound. Sure it's interesting where they come from, but no prerequisite
I think the words can be just as beautiful and enchanting as the tunes...Donal Og is sublime
It is late last night the dog was speaking of you;
the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh.
It is you are the lonely bird through the woods;
and that you may be without a mate until you find me.
You promised me, and you said a lie to me,
that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked;
I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you,
and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.
You promised me a thing that was hard for you,
a ship of gold under a silver mast;
twelve towns with a market in all of them,
and a fine white court by the side of the sea.
You promised me a thing that is not possible,
that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish;
that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird;
and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.
When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness,
I sit down and I go through my trouble;
when I see the world and do not see my boy,
he that has an amber shade in his hair.
It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you;
the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday.
And myself on my knees reading the Passion;
and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.
My mother said to me not to be talking with you today,
or tomorrow, or on the Sunday;
it was a bad time she took for telling me that;
it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.
My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe,
or as the black coal that is on the smith's forge;
or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls;
it was you that put that darkness over my life.
You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me;
you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;
you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me;
and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!
Anonymous; 8th Century Irish ballad; translated by Lady Augusta Gregory
It's all I can muster to stop from voming o'er the floor,
It's as much as I can take before taking the door,
I can take no more of this sickly ovation,
All I can hope is that it was lost in translation.
I can't help it if you don't have a poetic sensibility, llig. I recall your thread on allegories, which just baffle me. Just seems like a confusion of categories, to my brain. But I adore Welsh and Irish poetry, and the names of the tunes are delightful..the lark on the strand, for example, is a perfect image depicted with maximum economy, Banish misfortune, Cherish the ladies, so many wonderful titles which add an extra dimension. One of the things I like about American oldtime is the verses, they're like haiku, they can sum up a whole story in a couple of lines, 'my mama's a gingerbread baker, my sister she weaves and she spins, my daddy's got an interest in the old cotton mill, won't you watch that money roll in'...just brilliant. For all his genius, IMO, there are not many Dylan phrases that can match the old ones that were made by unknown composers long ago.
Poetic sensitivity ? Can't it just be appreciation of a good story well told ? How much difference between a singer of a trad song and a teller of a traditional story ? And between a story teller and an actor ? Does it matter if they are temporarily feeling the emotions of people back in history or just pretending to feel them ? If no-one sings the songs or tells the stories they just gather dust as words on a page like tunes as dots.
Poetic sensitivity ? I wrote 'poetic sensibility', meaning something rather different.
Personally, although I have several weeks worth of music on my computer, which I listen to much of the day, but there are very few songs. I feel rather like llig does. I want the melody, rhythm, texture of the sound, etc, but not words. I have a few tracks by Andy Irvine and Paul Brady which I can cope with. Also some by Ann Briggs. One or two other exceptions. But on the whole I really don't want to hear singing. I prefer to read lyrics or stories.
I think that asking what difference there is between a singer, a story teller and an actor is getting to the nub of it. I hate to bring it up again, but it's about performance. You really have to perform songs. You have to give out to them, to communicate them in a very straight forward manner.
Yes, to sing about the famine, you could fake starving. Unless you take the method route of course. Or at least empathise in some way. I love that story about Dustin Hofman and Lawrence Olivier on the set of The Marathon Man. Before they filmed the teeth pulling scene, Dustin stayed up for three days, then went for a five mile run. "What on earth made you do that?" asked Olivier. "Because the character had been up for three days," says Hofman. "But my dear boy," replies Olivier, "It's called acting."
The best singers wrestle with all this, consciously or not, in order to get the best performance. And I appreciate the effort and can enjoy it immensely.
But non of this has any relevance whatsoever to just being yourself down the pub with your mates and diddling out a few tunes. And when someone chimes in with their performance, of what ever, it just spoils it.
Somebody please post that link of the comedian, can't remember his name, with the routine about the session and throwing babies at the wall. It's priceless.
Sorry wolfbird - I read and thought what you said, my fingers or the spellchecker wrote something different.
I often don't pay much attention to the words either, other than maybe the effect they have on the tune in the different verses. Unless it is a good story well told. I still have an old tape with just the tunes from the first few Planxty albums. But as it happens one phrase from Andy Irvine on those albums "the lands gone to rushes" often comes to mind when standing by some ruin.
What annoys me is when the singer has paid so little attention to the story that they get the sense of the words wrong, or sing previously corrupted words without a care. (try Googling "the lands gone to rushes" ). Helps me understand how llig feels about tunes getting corrupted the same way.
I agree with Mr Llig in that you bneed to "feel" the words of a song, it is very difficult to sing a song you don't actually like.
I haven't a lot of time for the new emigrant songs, "Streets of New York" and "Flight of the Earls" for instance, and would not be keen to learn the much requested "Galway Girl" which mercifully I had not heard of until about three weeks ago.
But there are some cracking songs. Last Saturday night at Spanish Point we ended up just sitting at the camp site all night long singing songs. Two young ones from Belfast joined us, and the girl knew a number of lovely songs in Irish.
A great night indeed, and a fitting tribute to the song tradition.
People like tunes, they like songs, they like both, and everyone is different, thankfully. Whew. After reading this thread you'd think 'song' was a synonym for 'take a crap on the floor'.
Agreed. Many of these songs are ancient melodies. And the stories and words are gripping -- not all of them, but a lot of them. It's at least as valid a tradition as the diddley music, and probably goes back further.
Ned of the Hill is a case in point for me. Beautiful melody, wry verses. As far as I can recall, it's based on a true story of an Irish estate holder displaced by the British -- but he can still win the girl in the castle! (so they can live 'under the bough' -- outdoors, for chrissakes!)
One thing I do know is that most people fall into two camps on what they can do really well -- write or play music. I definitely fall in the writer's camp, which is why I love the songs and the stories.
I think skill in music and words require two parts of the brain to do well. Few do both well.
I love songs and I’ve been singing ballads for fifty years. If I had to give up one or the other, I’d be hard pressed to choose between singing and playing an instrument.
I can’t know what somebody else means by “feeling” the words of a song, but I think one of the worst mistakes a ballad singer can make is to earnestly act out the words. Subtlety is far more potent. There are exceptions, of course, such as when the song is clearly meant to be a camp melodrama or a comedic romp, but often the inherent pathos or irony or a song is somehow better conveyed by not *trying* to convey it.
Sometimes a tragic ballad is carried brilliantly by a cheerful sounding tune.
A few months ago I spent an hour or so checking out the many versions of 'She moved through the fair' on Youtube. It's easy to ruin a magnificent song.
Haha, I was scrolling down a webpage, absorbed by the text and entranced by the images...it was telling me a story...and my iTunes on computer randomly selected 'The cuckoo', ( John Renbourne's take on that song, which isn't bad ), and, by one of those deeply mysterious synchronicities, the webpage which I've not seen before, presented me with the lyrics of 'The cuckoo', a different version from old England, but the same song...
The cuckoo is a merry bird, she sings as she flies,
She brings us good tidings and tells us no lies;
She sucks the sweet flowers to make her sing clear,
And she never sings "cuckoo" till summer is near.
O meeting is a pleasure, but parting a grief,
An inconstant lover is worse than a thief;
For a thief will but rob you and swear to be true,
And the very next moment they'll bring you to the grave.
The grave it will rot you and bring you to dust,
There is not one in twenty young men girls can trust;
They will kiss you, and court you and swear to be true,
And the very next moment they'll bid you adieu.
Come all you young women wherever you be,
Build your nest in the top of a tree;
For the leaves they will wither, the branches decay,
And the beauty of fair maids will soon fade away.
"Mysterious synchronicities" - Great stuff wolfbird, and iTunes often does that to me too, for example, playing the same tune/song by two different folks back-to-back while randomly working its way through thousands of tracks. It's a bit creepy.
Whew, yes, SWFL...and talk about summing up a whole story in few words, this amazing evocative fragment, from that same blog...
"Blind Pony Lake: An area named after the Blind Pony Community that once lived there - - Poor freed slaves that settled there after the Civil War and farmed with blind horses, because they could
buy them for little money."
I really like the songs, especially sean nos. I actually feel like the songs (especially the old ones) help me to understand the tunes better, musically and contextually.
As for what right a middle class guitar strummer has to sing about famine, dislocation, etc. ... this is certainly a valid point that we need to be careful about how we represent other people/times/places etc. and in certain ways (say, through performance) claim these situations as our own. However, if we were to continue further down that line of thinking, we would be unjustified in speaking of anything we had not personally experienced, making much science, history, etc. impossible. (apologies for using etc. a lot)
I like bb's point that songs can help us remember the past...in fact that's a lot of how oral history (or tradition, one might say) works. I don't think we should never sing the songs, but we should also be conscious of their context and our own place in relation to that context (often outside of it).
Yes, jasonb, but we are mostly unjustified. It's just that we learn a social convention, which cultivates a mask of confidence which then becomes unconscious habit. We say 'The Normans invaded in 1066', as if it were something we knew by direct experience. But it's merely hand-me-down hearsay and anecdote really...( science is a bit different, because it's a formal project with rigorous protocols requiring empirical evidence, peer review procedure, and so forth.) I don't think there's anything wrong with learning old songs, or identifying with the experiences, at all. But the problem arises if one has the temerity to perform. There aren't many with the gift for it. I think it's a lot more demanding than playing tunes in the pub. To hear some shallow superficial useless rendering of a great song you know and love, is, (like llig's earlier point re Sandy Denny) a kind of sacrilege...the point cropped up a lot in the 1960's, when old blues singers were being re-discovered. Can a white middle class teenager really sing country blues ? It's almost an insult to the suffering and hardships of the people who produced the music. It trivializes, and tries to steal their birthright. I mean, how can any of us ever really know what it was like to try and farm the land using blind horses ? Hum the tune to yourself, dwell upon the story, ponder existence. That's fine by me. But how can you claim as your own that which is not, can never ever be, yours ?
People sing songs for enjoyment, whether it be Yellow Submarine or Sam Hall. I've sang both, poorly, with friends, and none of us had either ever been in a submarine nor been hanged. Yet we had a great time, and that was the whole point (just like sessions.)
Bruce Springsteen once said very few fans of his have gone through what the characters in his songs have... but most have FELT those emotions at one time or another.
I guess my point above is, what's all this drivel that the middle class has it easy? He or she does not. The same way the blues came in to the middle class. There's plenty of tough times to go around.
"what's all this drivel that the middle class has it easy?"
Not kidding, bogmanoc ? Well, I know life is tough in California these days, what with the price of burgers and petrol...but I don't think you can make a comparisom between middle-class difficulties, anywhere, and slavery, or the Irish famine. The middle classes, by definition, have a measure of wealth and security, which distinguishes them from those who have neither.
Yeah, well, I think it's fine that kids with guitars and a few drinks inside them can have a great time yelling out 'Angeline the baker', or even 'Yellow submarine' (which I loathe), but that's in a different league to the really great, powerful songs, which, IMHO, are best left to those who can do them justice.
wolfbird, you're right on science. I was mostly thinking of cosmology, paleontology, and the like that are less directly empirical and more about interpreting evidences from the past (microwave background radiation, fossils, etc.)...perhaps not a great example.
On a more satirical note : ) , I apologize for not being Irish, not being old enough to have directly experienced the famine, not having lived on the edge of starvation, and not having emigrated...I will try to find a new music to enjoy now. Maybe I could be part of a tradition of bland pop songs... : P
I sympathize with your problems, Bob and jasonb....it's a hard life...
and then we die.
I never said anything about not enjoying or playing this music, jasonb. I'm not in any position to pass such an edict. The point was about singing songs, wasn't it ? Andy Irvine has a great voice, and is one of the few who can deliver a song convincingly, but even then, personally, I prefer to listen to music without singing myself. That's my own taste.
I'm one of the "Sing Out!" types who believes songs are for whoever wants to sing them, be they "great and powerful" or not.
Perhaps totally irrelevant, but I remember listening to Bert Jansch singing The Curragh of Kildare once when he was, shall we say, somewhat under the influence. I much preferred the renditions heard by much less "au-fentic" singers in the parties of my youth.
btw, if americans were to take llig's advice and sing about stuff that happens and matters to you now, maybe you should be singing about the taxes you pay, and where the money goes...
I thought Jansch was great, all those years ago. Same goes for Shirley Collins and many others. I don't know whether it's because my ear has become more sophisticated, or I'm just getting old, but both make me cringe these days, almost embarrassing. Still quite like Paul Brady's 'Arthur McBride', something of a masterpiece, IMO.
In its day, Paul Brady's Arthur McBride turned into something of a pop song, at least among the folk-inclined. You (and he) couldn't get away from it. It was a great rendition, though.
But it's strange how songs get classified into "great and powerful" versus not "great and powerful", and it's often only to do with usage or over-usage. I love when a good singer takes a worn-out cliched chestnut and turns it into something more powerful. Like Jimmy Crowley and The Leaving of Liverpool, or Altan with "beidh aonach amarach."
There is something magical about everyday people singing. My grandfather would sing with my mother and her sister after dinner. He taught them tons of songs. They taught me. I guess they shouldn't have?
The "middle class" experience death, disease, joblessness, no healthcare, financial ruin, etc. Off-topic, I know, but don't tell me they have it easy just because the got TV and running water.
The words just produced mby Mr Llig do appear to be excrement.
However, I even enjoy "Kilkelly" for the simple words, and the period in history it invokes. Amazing to think of the number of New Yorkers with ancestors originally from Mayo.
Jansch and Shirley Collins were good enough as well, Brady's "Arthur McBride" was a show stopper when he did it solo during his "Planxty" days, as the rest of them were going through the motions by then. "The Island" has wonderful words.
Songs are the words.
Put it this way. I find Leonard Cohen to be uplifting, to brighten my day.
Cheery, everyone join in songs, I find depressing.
Llig, it's POETRY, not effing ornithology ! Technical scientific inaccuracies are entirely irrelevant. What's more, the song has, supposedly, the implicit reference to cuckolding of husbands, so it's really about human sexual conduct, nothing at all to do with birds.
And anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if whoever collected it and wrote it down got the words wrong. Probably some middle-class academic with a posh accent interrogating the gypsies working in the hopfields or something, similar to the English gentlemen who first mapped Wales for the Ordnance Survey, who couldn't understand any Welsh and got the place names all wrong...
I think part of the charm of those old songs is how they get odd verses added or subtracted until there's no logical narrative, just a bundle of imagery and suggestions for the listener's mind to play with.
There's loads of versions here http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=1407
IMO, when it comes to telling a story with a song, Paul Brady is a master of the art, but it's a different art to playing tunes. I don't really know why, but I mostly prefer to listen to instrumental music these days.
Yeah, I'll go along with grego and the "Sing Out". The stuff about "good story well told" above was in the context of "hush now while the singer sings a song" or listening to a "CD with songs and tunes". Ordinary people (including me) singing is different. It is what people do, alone or in groups, all over the world. No-one needs to be listening, usually no-one is.
Aargh - Leonard Cohen's voice filtered through the floor from the flat below is a depressing memory of student days. Used to give em a blast of Alex Campbell.
I'm trying to think of the last time I really liked a song so much that I listened to it over and over...I think it was 'Willie Taylor' that Rayna Gellert got from John Doyle...love her voice and fiddling, in fact I'm a big fan of Uncle Earl, all great musicians. You can hear a sample of it here
Am I the only one who wishes there were words to some of the traditional music? I'm always intrigued by the titles, like "The Day We Paid the Rent" listed on the first page today.
For Andy Irvine fans...
For Andy Irvine fans...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXA08bsRN-g
# Posted on July 14th 2008 by molaoch
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Thanks, and he brings up a good point. Andy remarked on how popular the jigs and reels are in our modern era, but at the cost of traditional song. A subject fitting for more discussion.
# Posted on July 14th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I don't know about Ireland, but here in America that certainly seems true.
# Posted on July 14th 2008 by jasonb
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
It's because the songs are pish. Irrelevant nonsense. If you want to sing, sing about stuff that happens and matters to you now.
# Posted on July 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Mr Llig is jesting. Like me, he adores "Who knows where the time goes" and many other songs.
Of course, he could be singling out traditional songs, so.................
# Posted on July 14th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Mr Llig is not jesting. He is talking about the traditional songs.
Perhaps we cannot dismiss all of the songs as "pish". There are some memorable ones, especially in Irish.
# Posted on July 14th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Certainly there is a tradition of the use of the tunes, the melodies, to produce songs. Generations often took the tunes and made their own songs, by absorbing and loving the old ones. Singers versed in the tradition, like Tommy Makem from his mother Sarah, created a huge body of unique work and preserved old songs. Andy Irvine has done much the same, just with a different personality, which just shows how well they processed the tradition.
Don't we ask people to do that with tunes, too? We love the great ones that are so versed in it that they can't help but embody the music when they play it, and do so with their own style?
Not the place for this here, maybe like mudcat or something.
Gentlemen, thank you both for your thoughts.
# Posted on July 14th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I remember hearing for the first time Sandy Denny Singing Who Knows Where the Time Goes on that first Strawbs album and being totally blown away - I was just a teenager. And I'd be really angry if I heard anyone cover it, especially down the boozer. I'd certainly be the fickle friend that left.
Yes, I'm talking about the trad songs really. What right has a middle class affluent guitar strummer got to wail on about the potato famine and being forced off the land.
Yeah, I prefer the ones in Irish, because I don't understand them and can appreciate the musicality in the abstract.
# Posted on July 14th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
This do you, Michael? Switch off now, purists.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leG3XiZmuXc
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by Steve Shaw
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Didn't like it, hated the vibrato. Give me Liam O'flynn playing that tune on the pipes any day
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I told you to switch off, you bloody purist.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by Steve Shaw
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Sh!t. I think I may agree with you. Just.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by Steve Shaw
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I like songs and I like tunes. Isn't it wonderful that we can have both? What a wonderful world....
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by AlBrown
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
You're going to confuse the Merkins, Al. They call tunes songs, you know.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by Steve Shaw
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
... and it's three times as bad to hear a middle class American, Australian,
etc etc try to sing one of those potato famine / murder ballad /
emigration songs. It's hard enough for me to hear a middle class
Jewish guy from Minnesota sing in that faux-Oklahoma accent .... even
if he is a genius
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by Hup
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Personally I do not have a problem with people singing old songs, should it be about the famine or whatever. after all, we have many middle class tune players, and the majority of the tunes have a history as well, perhaps relating to the same topics.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Yeah I guess that's true about the tunes. To be really authentic we
would all have to be Irish or Scottish, doing manual labour or farming -
not much education, lots of heartbreak, no money ... hmmm, I can't play
tunes any more I guess .... :(
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by Hup
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Well, the one thing I always say is that people generally tend to forget history in the blink of an eye. Its the one thing that really annoys me about us. I think singing songs of a tradtion about the past is a good thing, there are some things that we should not forget about. Things like war, the days when there was no such thing as a lunch break....etc etc
Hup - lets be honest now - most australians have either immigrated themselves or their parents did. Obviously those ones are ok then to sing about immigrating? No??
I only agree with people singing if they can actually sing, I have no time for howlers.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by bb
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
bb - ha ha -- yes, I am a migrant ... Ahh yes - the reeking hold of
the foul United Airlines 747 ... the rats, the rum, the lash, the pitiful foil
bags of peanuts. They made us get out on the wings and scrub them til
they shone like mirrors ... The new language: 'mid-wicket', 'drongo',
'chicko roll', 'GST' --- I could go on, but I feel a song coming ...
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by Hup
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I've been learning some of the Irish ballads. I think in America everyone thinks there's the dozen or so pub songs, either rebel or funny or tear-jerker, and that's about it. I think there's a complexity going on in a lot of the ballads I've encountered that, at the least, far surpasses the syrupy pop or the self-impressed rock of today.
To know some of the history brings them to life, and modern understanding. I don't know the background of many, but i do know Whiskey in the Jar is more than a song about a highwayman. It's about the celebrated heroes who took the money back from that the Crown or her lackeys who stole from the Irish peasants.
And Rocky Road to Dublin, quite frankly, scares the bejesus outta me.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by bogmanoc
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
When you sing words, it's vital that you feel them. There is little ambiguity in words (except Dylan).
But tunes are different. You don't have to know where they come from, just how they sound. Sure it's interesting where they come from, but no prerequisite
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I think the words can be just as beautiful and enchanting as the tunes...Donal Og is sublime
It is late last night the dog was speaking of you;
the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh.
It is you are the lonely bird through the woods;
and that you may be without a mate until you find me.
You promised me, and you said a lie to me,
that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked;
I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you,
and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.
You promised me a thing that was hard for you,
a ship of gold under a silver mast;
twelve towns with a market in all of them,
and a fine white court by the side of the sea.
You promised me a thing that is not possible,
that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish;
that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird;
and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.
When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness,
I sit down and I go through my trouble;
when I see the world and do not see my boy,
he that has an amber shade in his hair.
It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you;
the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday.
And myself on my knees reading the Passion;
and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.
My mother said to me not to be talking with you today,
or tomorrow, or on the Sunday;
it was a bad time she took for telling me that;
it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.
My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe,
or as the black coal that is on the smith's forge;
or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls;
it was you that put that darkness over my life.
You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me;
you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;
you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me;
and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!
Anonymous; 8th Century Irish ballad; translated by Lady Augusta Gregory
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
It's all I can muster to stop from voming o'er the floor,
It's as much as I can take before taking the door,
I can take no more of this sickly ovation,
All I can hope is that it was lost in translation.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Don't think your quatrain will survive for 1200 years, llig.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
It's already guarantied to. It's already archived in perpetuity in google's basement, along with the rest of world wide web - every two days or so.
So future generations in 1200 years can come across it and take it as a final verse. Now wouldn't that be good?
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I can't help it if you don't have a poetic sensibility, llig. I recall your thread on allegories, which just baffle me. Just seems like a confusion of categories, to my brain. But I adore Welsh and Irish poetry, and the names of the tunes are delightful..the lark on the strand, for example, is a perfect image depicted with maximum economy, Banish misfortune, Cherish the ladies, so many wonderful titles which add an extra dimension. One of the things I like about American oldtime is the verses, they're like haiku, they can sum up a whole story in a couple of lines, 'my mama's a gingerbread baker, my sister she weaves and she spins, my daddy's got an interest in the old cotton mill, won't you watch that money roll in'...just brilliant. For all his genius, IMO, there are not many Dylan phrases that can match the old ones that were made by unknown composers long ago.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Poetic sensitivity ? Can't it just be appreciation of a good story well told ? How much difference between a singer of a trad song and a teller of a traditional story ? And between a story teller and an actor ? Does it matter if they are temporarily feeling the emotions of people back in history or just pretending to feel them ? If no-one sings the songs or tells the stories they just gather dust as words on a page like tunes as dots.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by david_h
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Poetic sensitivity ? I wrote 'poetic sensibility', meaning something rather different.
Personally, although I have several weeks worth of music on my computer, which I listen to much of the day, but there are very few songs. I feel rather like llig does. I want the melody, rhythm, texture of the sound, etc, but not words. I have a few tracks by Andy Irvine and Paul Brady which I can cope with. Also some by Ann Briggs. One or two other exceptions. But on the whole I really don't want to hear singing. I prefer to read lyrics or stories.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I think that asking what difference there is between a singer, a story teller and an actor is getting to the nub of it. I hate to bring it up again, but it's about performance. You really have to perform songs. You have to give out to them, to communicate them in a very straight forward manner.
Yes, to sing about the famine, you could fake starving. Unless you take the method route of course. Or at least empathise in some way. I love that story about Dustin Hofman and Lawrence Olivier on the set of The Marathon Man. Before they filmed the teeth pulling scene, Dustin stayed up for three days, then went for a five mile run. "What on earth made you do that?" asked Olivier. "Because the character had been up for three days," says Hofman. "But my dear boy," replies Olivier, "It's called acting."
The best singers wrestle with all this, consciously or not, in order to get the best performance. And I appreciate the effort and can enjoy it immensely.
But non of this has any relevance whatsoever to just being yourself down the pub with your mates and diddling out a few tunes. And when someone chimes in with their performance, of what ever, it just spoils it.
Somebody please post that link of the comedian, can't remember his name, with the routine about the session and throwing babies at the wall. It's priceless.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Sorry wolfbird - I read and thought what you said, my fingers or the spellchecker wrote something different.
I often don't pay much attention to the words either, other than maybe the effect they have on the tune in the different verses. Unless it is a good story well told. I still have an old tape with just the tunes from the first few Planxty albums. But as it happens one phrase from Andy Irvine on those albums "the lands gone to rushes" often comes to mind when standing by some ruin.
What annoys me is when the singer has paid so little attention to the story that they get the sense of the words wrong, or sing previously corrupted words without a care. (try Googling "the lands gone to rushes" ). Helps me understand how llig feels about tunes getting corrupted the same way.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by david_h
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Crossed with Llig. Yes.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by david_h
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Oh go on then - "land's"
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by david_h
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I agree with Mr Llig in that you bneed to "feel" the words of a song, it is very difficult to sing a song you don't actually like.
I haven't a lot of time for the new emigrant songs, "Streets of New York" and "Flight of the Earls" for instance, and would not be keen to learn the much requested "Galway Girl" which mercifully I had not heard of until about three weeks ago.
But there are some cracking songs. Last Saturday night at Spanish Point we ended up just sitting at the camp site all night long singing songs. Two young ones from Belfast joined us, and the girl knew a number of lovely songs in Irish.
A great night indeed, and a fitting tribute to the song tradition.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
People like tunes, they like songs, they like both, and everyone is different, thankfully. Whew. After reading this thread you'd think 'song' was a synonym for 'take a crap on the floor'.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Sorry, that was a bit harsh. I just don't get the vitriol towards song.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Agreed. Many of these songs are ancient melodies. And the stories and words are gripping -- not all of them, but a lot of them. It's at least as valid a tradition as the diddley music, and probably goes back further.
Ned of the Hill is a case in point for me. Beautiful melody, wry verses. As far as I can recall, it's based on a true story of an Irish estate holder displaced by the British -- but he can still win the girl in the castle! (so they can live 'under the bough' -- outdoors, for chrissakes!)
Great song yesterday, now and forever.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by bogmanoc
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
One thing I do know is that most people fall into two camps on what they can do really well -- write or play music. I definitely fall in the writer's camp, which is why I love the songs and the stories.
I think skill in music and words require two parts of the brain to do well. Few do both well.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by bogmanoc
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I love songs and I’ve been singing ballads for fifty years. If I had to give up one or the other, I’d be hard pressed to choose between singing and playing an instrument.
I can’t know what somebody else means by “feeling” the words of a song, but I think one of the worst mistakes a ballad singer can make is to earnestly act out the words. Subtlety is far more potent. There are exceptions, of course, such as when the song is clearly meant to be a camp melodrama or a comedic romp, but often the inherent pathos or irony or a song is somehow better conveyed by not *trying* to convey it.
Sometimes a tragic ballad is carried brilliantly by a cheerful sounding tune.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
...Irony *of* a song...
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
A few months ago I spent an hour or so checking out the many versions of 'She moved through the fair' on Youtube. It's easy to ruin a magnificent song.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Haha, I was scrolling down a webpage, absorbed by the text and entranced by the images...it was telling me a story...and my iTunes on computer randomly selected 'The cuckoo', ( John Renbourne's take on that song, which isn't bad ), and, by one of those deeply mysterious synchronicities, the webpage which I've not seen before, presented me with the lyrics of 'The cuckoo', a different version from old England, but the same song...
The cuckoo is a merry bird, she sings as she flies,
She brings us good tidings and tells us no lies;
She sucks the sweet flowers to make her sing clear,
And she never sings "cuckoo" till summer is near.
O meeting is a pleasure, but parting a grief,
An inconstant lover is worse than a thief;
For a thief will but rob you and swear to be true,
And the very next moment they'll bring you to the grave.
The grave it will rot you and bring you to dust,
There is not one in twenty young men girls can trust;
They will kiss you, and court you and swear to be true,
And the very next moment they'll bid you adieu.
Come all you young women wherever you be,
Build your nest in the top of a tree;
For the leaves they will wither, the branches decay,
And the beauty of fair maids will soon fade away.
http://blindpony.blogspot.com/
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
"Mysterious synchronicities" - Great stuff wolfbird, and iTunes often does that to me too, for example, playing the same tune/song by two different folks back-to-back while randomly working its way through thousands of tracks. It's a bit creepy.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Whew, yes, SWFL...and talk about summing up a whole story in few words, this amazing evocative fragment, from that same blog...
"Blind Pony Lake: An area named after the Blind Pony Community that once lived there - - Poor freed slaves that settled there after the Civil War and farmed with blind horses, because they could
buy them for little money."
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I really like the songs, especially sean nos. I actually feel like the songs (especially the old ones) help me to understand the tunes better, musically and contextually.
As for what right a middle class guitar strummer has to sing about famine, dislocation, etc. ... this is certainly a valid point that we need to be careful about how we represent other people/times/places etc. and in certain ways (say, through performance) claim these situations as our own. However, if we were to continue further down that line of thinking, we would be unjustified in speaking of anything we had not personally experienced, making much science, history, etc. impossible. (apologies for using etc. a lot)
I like bb's point that songs can help us remember the past...in fact that's a lot of how oral history (or tradition, one might say) works. I don't think we should never sing the songs, but we should also be conscious of their context and our own place in relation to that context (often outside of it).
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by jasonb
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
to clarify, "and HOW in certain ways (say, through performance) claim these situations as our own."
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by jasonb
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Yes, jasonb, but we are mostly unjustified. It's just that we learn a social convention, which cultivates a mask of confidence which then becomes unconscious habit. We say 'The Normans invaded in 1066', as if it were something we knew by direct experience. But it's merely hand-me-down hearsay and anecdote really...( science is a bit different, because it's a formal project with rigorous protocols requiring empirical evidence, peer review procedure, and so forth.) I don't think there's anything wrong with learning old songs, or identifying with the experiences, at all. But the problem arises if one has the temerity to perform. There aren't many with the gift for it. I think it's a lot more demanding than playing tunes in the pub. To hear some shallow superficial useless rendering of a great song you know and love, is, (like llig's earlier point re Sandy Denny) a kind of sacrilege...the point cropped up a lot in the 1960's, when old blues singers were being re-discovered. Can a white middle class teenager really sing country blues ? It's almost an insult to the suffering and hardships of the people who produced the music. It trivializes, and tries to steal their birthright. I mean, how can any of us ever really know what it was like to try and farm the land using blind horses ? Hum the tune to yourself, dwell upon the story, ponder existence. That's fine by me. But how can you claim as your own that which is not, can never ever be, yours ?
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I'm tempted to say "get a grip!"
People sing songs for enjoyment, whether it be Yellow Submarine or Sam Hall. I've sang both, poorly, with friends, and none of us had either ever been in a submarine nor been hanged. Yet we had a great time, and that was the whole point (just like sessions.)
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by grego
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Here's one to consider...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTj8yMK6HE8&feature=related
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Bruce Springsteen once said very few fans of his have gone through what the characters in his songs have... but most have FELT those emotions at one time or another.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by bogmanoc
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I guess my point above is, what's all this drivel that the middle class has it easy? He or she does not. The same way the blues came in to the middle class. There's plenty of tough times to go around.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by bogmanoc
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
People don't sing *only* for enjoyment...I think you miss the point grego.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEb20iAjCYs
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
"what's all this drivel that the middle class has it easy?"
Not kidding, bogmanoc ? Well, I know life is tough in California these days, what with the price of burgers and petrol...but I don't think you can make a comparisom between middle-class difficulties, anywhere, and slavery, or the Irish famine. The middle classes, by definition, have a measure of wealth and security, which distinguishes them from those who have neither.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I wonder what llig thinks of Nina Simone's version ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZa3XsHA6UU
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
HA! See, now I see this as even more reason to sing them, Irish-Americans in particular.
The Jewish people don't ever forget what they've been through or where they came from, it's a part of their cultural identity.
I think all cultures or ethnicities can learn something from that.
Or, to quote Bob Marley: 'If you don't know your history, then you don't know where you're coming from."
Certainly in the history of Ireland, bards, song and history formed a vital, connected tradition. The history of the people is in the song.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Yeah, well, I think it's fine that kids with guitars and a few drinks inside them can have a great time yelling out 'Angeline the baker', or even 'Yellow submarine' (which I loathe), but that's in a different league to the really great, powerful songs, which, IMHO, are best left to those who can do them justice.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I grew up well below the middle class and I still can’t sing the blues. :(
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by Bob himself
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
wolfbird, you're right on science. I was mostly thinking of cosmology, paleontology, and the like that are less directly empirical and more about interpreting evidences from the past (microwave background radiation, fossils, etc.)...perhaps not a great example.
On a more satirical note : ) , I apologize for not being Irish, not being old enough to have directly experienced the famine, not having lived on the edge of starvation, and not having emigrated...I will try to find a new music to enjoy now. Maybe I could be part of a tradition of bland pop songs... : P
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by jasonb
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I sympathize with your problems, Bob and jasonb....it's a hard life...
and then we die.
I never said anything about not enjoying or playing this music, jasonb. I'm not in any position to pass such an edict. The point was about singing songs, wasn't it ? Andy Irvine has a great voice, and is one of the few who can deliver a song convincingly, but even then, personally, I prefer to listen to music without singing myself. That's my own taste.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I'm one of the "Sing Out!" types who believes songs are for whoever wants to sing them, be they "great and powerful" or not.
Perhaps totally irrelevant, but I remember listening to Bert Jansch singing The Curragh of Kildare once when he was, shall we say, somewhat under the influence. I much preferred the renditions heard by much less "au-fentic" singers in the parties of my youth.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by grego
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
btw, if americans were to take llig's advice and sing about stuff that happens and matters to you now, maybe you should be singing about the taxes you pay, and where the money goes...
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I'm glad I don't have to listen to you, grego
I thought Jansch was great, all those years ago. Same goes for Shirley Collins and many others. I don't know whether it's because my ear has become more sophisticated, or I'm just getting old, but both make me cringe these days, almost embarrassing. Still quite like Paul Brady's 'Arthur McBride', something of a masterpiece, IMO.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
You should be...
Jansch was wonderful, on his good days.
In its day, Paul Brady's Arthur McBride turned into something of a pop song, at least among the folk-inclined. You (and he) couldn't get away from it. It was a great rendition, though.
But it's strange how songs get classified into "great and powerful" versus not "great and powerful", and it's often only to do with usage or over-usage. I love when a good singer takes a worn-out cliched chestnut and turns it into something more powerful. Like Jimmy Crowley and The Leaving of Liverpool, or Altan with "beidh aonach amarach."
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by grego
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
There is something magical about everyday people singing. My grandfather would sing with my mother and her sister after dinner. He taught them tons of songs. They taught me. I guess they shouldn't have?
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
...and I've learned more than they taught, I guess I shouldn't have either?
...and I should quit goofing off on the internet and go clean the &#%$ kitchen. Nobody wants to have a kitchen session in a dirty kitchen.
Wonder if I'll sing any songs while I clean... ;-P
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I mean
, of course.
# Posted on July 15th 2008 by SWFL Fiddler
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
The "middle class" experience death, disease, joblessness, no healthcare, financial ruin, etc. Off-topic, I know, but don't tell me they have it easy just because the got TV and running water.
# Posted on July 16th 2008 by bogmanoc
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
"she never sings "cuckoo" till summer is near"
For feck's sake. "SHE" never sings "cuckoo" at all. HE that sings cuckoo.
And the trite mixing of metaphors:
"Come all you young women wherever you be,
Build your nest in the top of a tree."
(not to mention that the one ubiquitous characteristic of the cuckoo is that they don't build nests).
Come on now. Get a grip you lot. These songs are Shiite
# Posted on July 16th 2008 by llig leahcim
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
The Irish "bards" in the ancient courts were upper class.
# Posted on July 16th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
The words just produced mby Mr Llig do appear to be excrement.
However, I even enjoy "Kilkelly" for the simple words, and the period in history it invokes. Amazing to think of the number of New Yorkers with ancestors originally from Mayo.
Jansch and Shirley Collins were good enough as well, Brady's "Arthur McBride" was a show stopper when he did it solo during his "Planxty" days, as the rest of them were going through the motions by then. "The Island" has wonderful words.
Songs are the words.
Put it this way. I find Leonard Cohen to be uplifting, to brighten my day.
Cheery, everyone join in songs, I find depressing.
# Posted on July 16th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Llig, it's POETRY, not effing ornithology !
Technical scientific inaccuracies are entirely irrelevant. What's more, the song has, supposedly, the implicit reference to cuckolding of husbands, so it's really about human sexual conduct, nothing at all to do with birds.
And anyway, I wouldn't be surprised if whoever collected it and wrote it down got the words wrong. Probably some middle-class academic with a posh accent interrogating the gypsies working in the hopfields or something, similar to the English gentlemen who first mapped Wales for the Ordnance Survey, who couldn't understand any Welsh and got the place names all wrong...
I think part of the charm of those old songs is how they get odd verses added or subtracted until there's no logical narrative, just a bundle of imagery and suggestions for the listener's mind to play with.
There's loads of versions here
http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=1407
# Posted on July 16th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
IMO, when it comes to telling a story with a song, Paul Brady is a master of the art, but it's a different art to playing tunes. I don't really know why, but I mostly prefer to listen to instrumental music these days.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ad8RVexRUoQ&feature=related
# Posted on July 16th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Yeah, I'll go along with grego and the "Sing Out". The stuff about "good story well told" above was in the context of "hush now while the singer sings a song" or listening to a "CD with songs and tunes". Ordinary people (including me) singing is different. It is what people do, alone or in groups, all over the world. No-one needs to be listening, usually no-one is.
Aargh - Leonard Cohen's voice filtered through the floor from the flat below is a depressing memory of student days. Used to give em a blast of Alex Campbell.
# Posted on July 16th 2008 by david_h
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I'm trying to think of the last time I really liked a song so much that I listened to it over and over...I think it was 'Willie Taylor' that Rayna Gellert got from John Doyle...love her voice and fiddling, in fact I'm a big fan of Uncle Earl, all great musicians. You can hear a sample of it here
http://cdbaby.com/cd/uncleearl3
http://www.epinions.com/content_193209863812
# Posted on July 16th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
There's a couple of videos of them, poor sound quality unfortunately
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n4yXsUCIX8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6XDZWOLl5s&feature=related
# Posted on July 16th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
I guess what America needs is a new Woody Guthrie to sing about the collapse of living standards for the American middle classes..
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/guests/s_576040.html
http://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/
# Posted on July 16th 2008 by wolfbird
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Nina Simone is a legend, although I didn't know she was promoting karaoke.
I remember seeing Alex Campbell in Belfast a few times.
Cohen, the voice does it all.
# Posted on July 16th 2008 by bodhran bliss
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Am I the only one who wishes there were words to some of the traditional music? I'm always intrigued by the titles, like "The Day We Paid the Rent" listed on the first page today.
# Posted on July 16th 2008 by bogmanoc
Re: For Andy Irvine fans...
Hup-------your paragraph " in the stinking hold of the 747......
almost make me p*ss me American pants. Nice to meet 'ya.
# Posted on July 20th 2008 by hauke