Yr Ods – “Ceridwen”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

I guess I haven’t shared anything not folky in Welsh in a while, so thought I would today. Yr Ods (which simply translates to The Odds in English) are a psych pop band from Cardiff, and I discovered them quite early on on my Welsh-language music journey, thanks to BBC Radio Cymru if I believe correctly. I do have a lot to thank BBC Radio Cymru for, come to think of it. And I’ve liked them right away. I’ve been listening more to them recently though, as this year (and the last quarter of last year) I seem to be going through some sort of psychedelic phase and listen to a lot of more or less weird music with a more or less psychedelic feel to it. For some reason I feel particularly drawn to their 2019 concept album Iaith y Nefoedd (Language of Heaven), created alongside a novella by the same title written by Llwyd Owen and commissioned by the band. Ceridwen is a single from that album and I think my favourite song on it. 

 

The book is a dystopian thriller set in future Wales, in which the country goes bankrupt after Brexit and Welsh speakers are being persecuted. As a result of that, as well as a later apocalypse, the main character in the book becomes the leader of an underground cult that’s built around the Welsh language, kind of twisting the meaning of a popular Welsh saying that Welsh is the language of heaven. The album doesn’t follow the book very closely, but being part of the same project, they’re of course still very much related. I’ve never actually read the book, as I guess I’m still not a fluent enough Welsh speaker, plus generally thrillers and sci fi are totally not my thing, though the whole language as a means of salvation thing sounds very interesting as an idea for a book, and I’m curious who Ceridwen is, and if she has anything to do with the mythical Ceridwen, if only perhaps on a symbolical level or something, because the mythical Ceridwen is one of my favourite characters in any mythology. I think I wrote about that on here before though. So maybe some day I’ll feel brave enough to give this novella a go. The album though, musically, is very much my thing. 

 

Yr Ods is a four-piece band consisting of Griff Lynch, Gruff Pritchard, Osian Howells and Rhys Aneurin. Actually, I only found out today that they’re from Cardiff, which made me feel really bad about myself and my self-proclaimed ability to identify people’s accents, both in Welsh and in English. I may be just a learner who isn’t even British, let alone Welsh, and has never been to Wales, but I could have sworn that Griff Lynch (the group’s frontman, singer and guitarist) has quite a typical northwestern Welsh accent, both in Welsh and in English, from the little bits of English I’ve heard him sing. I couldn’t come to terms with my failure, so I kept frantically digging through Google to find evidence supporting my theory, and – phew, turns out there’s nothing wrong with my hearing, after all! – They did form the band in Cardiff, during college, but Griff actually grew up in Bangor (which, for those unacquainted with Welsh geography, is in the north west of Wales, specifically, it’s the largest city in county Gwynedd! Go Bibiel! I feel so much better now, this made my day, lol. 

 

The song is quite easy vocab-wise and its lyrics are available online, so Bibielz were also able to write a translation, which makes me feel even better, as it’s so rare that I’m successful at translating Welsh songs into English. I understood lots of little bits of this song even before trying to write this translation though, so that was very encouraging. I really do hope I didn’t screw up too much, but, as always, keep in mind that I’m not a native speaker of either language so there might be mistakes. 

 

You and I 

And our feet in soil 

Between longing and imperfect memory 

While you’re searching for the stars, I’ve nested in my place, 

Holding on to white lies for your sake 

Turn on your little light 

Pull the blanket over your head 

You’re never too young and you’re never too old 

TO hide in your reading list 

While you’re searching for the stars, I’ve nested in my place, 

Holding on to white lies for your sake 

Oh Ceridwen, you’re a star 

Go fill up your head, oh Ceridwen 

Don’t worry, in no time, you will have crossed  

The end must be celebrated 

Oh Ceridwen, you’re a star 

Go fill up your head, oh Ceridwen 

 

Norland Wind – “Storm in a Teacup”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

Let’s listen to this lively piece by Norland Wind today. I introduced Norland Wind on here last year, which was also when I myself became acquainted with this interesting collective, but for those who don’t know them, it’s a project initiated by German harpist Thomas Loefke, a group of musicians from all over northwestern Europe who play Celtic music with a strong Nordic influence. Storm in a Teacup is the title track of an album they released in 2013, and was composed by Danish composer Henning Flintholm. Aside from aforementioned Thomas Loefke, other people we can hear in this piece are Norwegian guitarist Kerstin Blodig (who’s also into Scandinavian languages), Scottish multi-instrumentalist Ian Melrose (who used to be a guitarist in Clannad, among other things) and English/Scottish multi-instrumentalist Hal Parfitt-Murray (who also has a connection to Denmark). 

 

Cornelis Vreeswijk – “Brev Från Kolonien” (Letter From the Camp).

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today, I picked this really cool, darkly humourous song by Cornelis Vreeswijk, one of his earlier songs which is now a beloved classic inn Sweden. I’ve known it for years but it still makes me chuckle when I hear it. Apparently kids even learn it at school, lol. Those who are somewhat acquainted with Cornelis’ music, style etc. know that he quite often liked to “steal” songs from artists from other countries, and translate them to Swedish, sometimes these would be direct translations, other times just loosely based on the original. So is the case with this one, which is a cover of Alan Sherman’s parody song “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh”, whose melody in turn is taken from Amilcare Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours” in La Gioconda. However, Brev Från Kolonien absolutely doesn’t even aim to be a literal translation. While it’s strongly inspired by Sherman’s song, it’s also totally its own thing. If you’ve listened to “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh”, it’s very mild compared to Vreeswijk’s version. The kid in Sherman’s song is just normal – he is anxious on the first day of the camp and wants back home and thinks it’s awful and it sounds like a lot of the things that happened are exaggerated or flat out made up by him. But I’m sure that if any mother who’s not a sociopath were to get a letter like Vreeswijk’s song from her child, she’d have a heart attack. But that’s what makes it way funnier than the original in my opinion. And the kid is so phlegmatically unemotional and matter-of-fact about it all that if it weren’t fictional, it would be creepy haha. 

 

The song comes from a 1965 live album titled “Visor och Oförskämdheter” (Songs and Rudenesses) recorded together with Fred Åkerström och Ann-Louise Hansson. There are also two other verses that are not on this recording because they were written later. 

 

Bibielz wrote a translation of this song, which I’m not sure how well it actually conveys the vibe of the Swedish original, but Bibielz did their best. The boy addresses his parents as “morsan” and “stabben” which are slangy words for mum and dad (though I’ve never really heard “stabben” being used besides this song so maybe it’s dated by now), but I opted for cautiously translating these as just “mum” and “dad”, as I wasn’t very sure what English slangy words for parents would fit the overall context of this best, and Sherman’s “muddah” and “fadduh” seem to have a different vibe to me than “morsan” and “stabben” though I could be wrong. 

 

Hello mum, hello dad, 

Here is a letter from your darling boy 

We’re having fun at the camp 

We live twenty eight gangster boys in one 

 

Huge barrack with lots of beds 

Can you send more money? 

Because that would be a good deed 

I’ve gambled away every single penny at dice 

 

It’s fun here, I promise 

Although a little difficult to sleep 

The guy in the bunk above me 

He never wakes up when he really needs to, no 

 

I’ve lost two front teeth 

‘Cause I tried to walk on my hands 

When we were playing charades 

So when mum will see me now she’ll go crazy 

 

There are bugs out in the forest 

But my friend, he has pills 

Which he bought from some dodgy guy 

And when you take them you become a very cool guy 

 

Our camp director has gone 

He will never be what he used to 

Because the police came and took care 

Of him last week when we were playing forest fire 

 

Out in the forest there are deer 

In the barrack there are critters 

And my best friend Tage 

Has a little pocket knife in his stomach 

 

They’’re going to operate on him 

Well, I guess that’s it 

Hugs and kisses and heartfelt thanks 

But now we’re going out to burn the neighbouring barrack 

 

Loreena McKennitt – “Cymbeline”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

My today’s song of the day choice is Shakespearean, as you can gather from the title. It is William Shakespeare’s poem that appears in his play Cymbeline, sung by Cymbeline’s sons – Guiderius and Arviragus – and concerning death. Loreena McKennitt set it to music. It appears on Loreena’s album The Visit. She was exposed to a lot of Shakespeare’s works while working at the Stratford Shakespearean Theatre for a couple of years in the ‘80s, and she was looking for some work of Shakespeare’s that would have a Celtic connection to it. That is how she came across this poem. 

 

Susan Scott – “O’Carolan’s Draft / Planxty Mrs. Judge”.

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For today I picked a set of two pieces, composed by the famous blind Irish harper Turlough O’Carolan, and played by American harpist Susan Scott. I shared one other piece two years ago on here played by Susan Scott – Debussy’s Clair de Lune. The first of the two tunes in this set is better known as O’Carolan’s Draught, and as such I shared it played by another American harpist – Margie Butler. – The second tune, as its name says, is dedicated to one Mrs Judge, who might have been one of O’Carolan’s patrons, but sadly I don’t know anything about her, but the tune is lovely in my opinion and I’d never heard it before coming across Susan Scott’s rendition. 

 

Rachel newton – “For Love”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today I picked a song from Rachel Newton’s album West. Rachel Newton’s music has been featured quite a lot on my blog already, but for those of you who are unfamiliar with her, she is a Scottish folk singer and harpist, who performs both traditional Scottish songs and her original material, and aside from her solo career she is also part of various other projects and plays with many British folk artists. This is a traditional Scottish love song. 

 

Aryeh Frankfurter – “Captain O’Kane”.

Hi people! 🙂 

 

For today I chose a harp tune played by Aryeh Frankfurter. I really like his arrangement of it, although it’s generally a very nice piece. Most likely, it was composed by Turlough O’Carolan – a blind Irish harper, a lot of whose other compositions, played by many different artists, I’ve already shared on here before. – 

 

Clannad – “Skellig”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today I chose this really powerful-sounding song by Clannad, inspired by the two rocky Skellig islands in county Kerry, which were a popular pilgrimage destination, specifically the larger one called Skellig Michael, where an early Christian monastery was founded that is now a Unesco heritage site. This island was also a refuge for Irish Catholic during the time of penal laws in Ireland. 

 

Gwilym Bowen Rhys – “Cartref” (Home).

Hey people! 🙂 

 

Today I want to share with you an old Welsh song that I really love. It is basically all about how there’s no place like home, and I wholeheartedly agree with it, even though my perspective is probably different than that of the lyrical subject of this song since he sounds like someone very well-travelled who enjoys being able to come home at the end of his journey, whereas I am, as most of you will know, a semi-hermit who rarely even feels the need to go far from home, so I think both these things might feel a bit different. . It was written by a popular Welsh 19th century poet called Richard Davies, or Mynyddog. I really wanted to translate this song for you guys, since I do understand a lot of it, and I actually did, but in the end decided it was not particularly good and may have had a lot of errors. But then I don’t think it’s the kind of song where you absolutely need to understand all of the words to actually get the message and the feel of the song, or all the more to enjoy it, as I think it’s message is very clear and universal. It’s from the perspective of someone who has travelled the world, been to many countries, but still, he thinks that no place is quite as cosy, comfortable, warm and pleasant as home, where you can find shelter from the winds and the storms and be welcomed and surrounded by family and loved ones, as well as comfortingly familiar furniture. 

 

What makes me even more fond of this song is that the first time I heard it it was by Gwilym Bowen Rhys (one of my faza peeps), and while I’ve heard several more versions since then, I thought I’d like to share with you this first one I heard. Gwilym performed it in the British Embassy in Paris in 2018, as part of the launch of the L’Orient Interceltic Festival that takes place each summer in Brittany and brings together all the Celtic nations with their languages and cultures. 

 

Georgia Ruth – “Dovecote”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

I feel like I haven’t shared anything by Georgia Ruth in a long time so I’d like to do that today. This really beautiful and atmospheric song comes from this Welsh folk singer, songwriter and harpist’s album Week of Pines. 

 

Llio Rhydderch – “Dafydd y Garreg Wen – Dafydd of The White Rock”.

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For today I chose another piece by Welsh triple harp player Llio Rhydderch. It is a traditional piece composed by David Owen, a Welsh harpist who lived in the 18th century on a farm called y Garreg Wen (The White Rock). The tradition claims that he composed this air on his deathbed. There are also words that were set to it many years later that talk about him playing the harp before death and parting with his family. I think the tune already sounds very characteristic and striking on its own in my opinion, but Llio Rhydderch, as is always the case with her arrangements, makes it sound even more beautiful. 

 

Mary Lattimore – “The Quiet at Night”.

Hiya people! 🙂 

 

I was listening to Mary Lattimore again yesterday (I do it fairly often, as in just a year I’ve gone from feeling rather meh about her to finding to be my favourite modern harpist), and I thought I’d like to share something by her on here again. I decided on this hauntingly otherworldly composition which comes from her album At the Dam. This is the first track from this particular album of hers that I’m featuring on my blog. 

 

Cynthia A. Boener – “Southwind”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today I chose a lovely traditional Irish tune, played by a harpist from Indiana. Cynthia A. Boener sounds like a very versatile person with lots of different interests, as besides playing the harp, she can also play the piano and organ and plays the latter during church services. It sounds like she must be Catholic, because her website says that she is an oblate of St. Meinrad Monastery, which, being Catholic myself, of course I think is really cool! Aside from being a musician, she is also a pharmacist, and has worked in a few other fields over the years. As for Southwind, as I said it is an Irish air, going back to the 18th century and collected by Edward Bunting from a harper in County Clare. I read that there is an interesting legend which tells how Clare musicians learned this tune. It involves a ghost ship which brought back home the souls of Irish expatriates. The ship was driven up the west coast of Clare by a southern wind, and musicians who witnessed this event could hear the ghosts of those people singing this tune. While I’m sharing an instrumental version, there are words that have been written to this tune by one Freckled Donal MacNamara, and these in turn are connected to County Mayo – MacNamara’s homeland which he was homesick for. – It is a conversation between the poet and the south wind about his longing. I only discovered Cynthia’s music quite recently, and her arrangement of this tune is also the first one I’ve ever heard. 

 

Cornelis Vreeswijk – “Veronica” & My Bubba & Elsa Håkansson – “Veronica”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

For today I chose a beautiful song by Cornelis Vreeswijk, which is so beautiful and so popular in Sweden that I’m seriously surprised I haven’t shared it before. I was pretty sure I must have, but just couldn’t remember when, so I was shocked to find that it’s just not on here. It is actually one of my favourite songs by Cornelis (although of course, nothing can beat “Grimasch…”) It comes from one of his earlier albums – Tio Vackra Visor och Personliga Persson (Ten Beautiful Songs and Personal Persson) from 1968, which is also in my opinion one of Cornelis’ better albums. There is also a Dutch version of Veronica and, while in general, at least from what I know, Cornelis is far less popular in his home country than in Sweden, he had a couple of hits in the Netherlands as well, and Veronica is one of them. Apparently in no small way due to a Dutch radio station called Radio Veronica which was playing it a lot when the song came out in Dutch at the beginning of the 70’s. 

 

I was thinking about doing a literal translation of it for this post to make it more accessible to my non-Swedish-speaking readers, but then I was reminded of a really good English-language rendition that exists – one made a couple years ago by Swedish-Icelandic folk duo My Bubba together with Elsa Håkansson. I shared one song by them before, by the way, which comes from the same album as Veronica. That song was Uti Vår Hage,   a very famous traditional Swedish tune, and I still absolutely love their version. And, while “Veronica” will always be best in the original, I really like My Bubba’s gently Americana-flavoured, minimalistic English cover as well. And their poetic translation captures the vibe of the original lyrics quite effectively. Thus, I didn’t really see the point in doing a literal translation from Swedish, because while it might have been more exact, it certainly wouldn’t be better. I am also sharing Cornelis’ Dutch version, which as far as I can tell is also very similar lyrics-wise to the Swedish one with some rather minor differences. Not that these are the only languages in which Veronica has been sung. Gudrun Gunnars, about whose album of Cornelis covers I wrote last month, sang it in Icelandic, and I also know of a Danish version. Possibly there are even more that I don’t know or can’t think of right now. But I guess these three will be more than enough for one post. 

 

Cornelis Vreeswijk (Swedish): 

 

Cornelis Vreeswijk (Dutch): 

 

 

My Bubba: 

 

Sharron Kraus – “Blodeuwedd”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

Yesterday I shared a piece inspired by Celtic mythology and today I’d like to continue with the theme, though unlike Angus, the protagonist of today’s song comes from Welsh mythology. This song comes from an album that came out over eight years ago, but is relatively new to me, as is Sharron Kraus’ music in general. She is a folk singer and songwriter from Oxford, and the album in question is called Friends and Enemies; Lovers and Strangers. It is inspired by the Mabinogion – a medieval collection of Welsh folk tales. – This particular song is very interesting, because it tells the story of Blodeuwedd – a woman made of flowers who is a central figure in the fourth and last branch of the Mabinogi – and the lyrics are written from her perspective, in the first person. Blodeuwedd was created by two magicians – Gwydion and Math. – Gwydion was the uncle (or possibly even the father) of Lleu Llaw Gyffes, who was cursed by his mother so that he could not marry a human woman. So Gwydion, wanting to help him, made Blodeuwedd to be his wife. However, later, when Lleu was away, Blodeuwedd had an affair with another man, and the two of them conspired to murder her husband. Which wasn’t easy at all because there were ridiculously specific circumstances in which Lleu could be killed, and any other way wouldn’t work. But even though Lleu revealed to Blodeuwedd the circumstances in which he could be killed, it still backfired in the end, and eventually Gwydion punished Blodeuwedd by changing her into an owl – a creature hated by all other birds. – What I think is also worth mentioning is that, among other instruments, we can hear the harp throughout this album, and it is played by Harriet Earis – English harpist based in Wales whose name has already appeared many times before on my blog, in connection to her experimental, jazzy-folky project called Harriet Earis Trio. 

 

Ardyth & Jennifer – “Dream Angus”.

Hey people! 🙂 

 

Over a year ago, I shared with you a really beautiful rendition of the Scottish traditional lullaby Dream Angus, sung by English folk singer and fiddle player Jackie Oates. Recently, I found out about another rendition of Dream Angus that I really like. I think it’ll always be Jackie’s version which will speak to me the most, but this one by Ardyth & Jennifer is also really lovely. Ardyth & Jennifer are a duo from Nova Scotia, who perform both traditional Celtic songs and their own music and play the harp. If you’d like to learn more about this song, and who Angus is, or hear more verses of it, you can click the link above and read my post about Jackie’s version and listen to it as well. 

 

Lavinia Meijer – “Gymnopedie No. 1”.

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I’ve shared Eric Satie’s Gymnopedies in harp arrangements on here, either played by Welsh Celtic harpist Delyth Jenkins, or by Italian classical/experimental harpist Floraleda Sacchi, but today I thought I’d like to share the first Gymnopedie, played by Lavinia Meijer – who is a Dutch harpist born in Korea with a classical background and a lot of whose other music I’ve shared before on here. – You may also want to check out my previous song of the day post about the first Gymnopedie, where I featured it played by Floraleda Sacchi. 

 

Gwilym Bowen Rhys – “Bachgen Ifanc Ydwyf” (I am a Young Lad).

Hi people! 🙂 

 

Today I’d like to share something by Gwilym Bowen Rhys, and I picked a song from his debut solo album – O Groth Y Ddaear (From the Earth’s Womb). It’s about a young boy who is searching for love, but so far has had no success. In other renditions of this song I’ve heard, the boy also sings that he owns a lot of land and riches, cattle etc. Gwilym’s version is quite different though because he has merged the two traditional verses into one, and written two additional verses of his own, as he often likes to mix the old with the new, and it works really well. One interesting thing that I read about this song is that it travelled together with Welsh Calvinistic Methodist missionaries all the way to the Khasi Hills, who adapted it to be a hymn titled Bryniau Cassia (Khasi Hills). It’s cool how folk music (even if disguised as hymns) can bridge two cultures that are so distant from each other geographically. The English translation below comes from Gwilym’s website, where you can also find the Welsh words. 

 

Well I am a young lad, almost twenty-one

If I have a loose grip, I’m steady on my feet

I’m like the old fisherman who walks by the lake’s edge

Seeing lots of fish but unable to catch any

 

Well I am a young lad that’s thirsting for some love

and for the tasty barley juice and for the sweet lips of a girl

But for all the short term pleasures by the bar

My soul is still searching for a heart that I can love

 

Well I am a young lad that’s busy on the meadow Shepherding my feelingS and my foolish desires

I spend my days planting seeds on the slopes

But, for the life of me, I cannot plant the seed of love