Hey people! 🙂
Keeping my promise from yesterday, here’s the second song from Eithne ní Uallacháin’s album Bilingua, my most exciting music discovery of the year so far. Like yesterday’s song, it’s in what’s called macaronic form – two languages mixed together – but it’s a traditional tune. As far as I know, the English version came first and the Irish translation was written later. But regardless of which came first, they are of course poetic rather than literal translations of each other, so there are differences between them, though I don’t speak Irish (yet), so I can’t write a direct translation of the Irish lyrics and haven’t found such a direct translation anywhere. Google Translate claims that the Irish title means something like “I am Tired/Sick of Being Alone in My Bed”, but I’ve stuck with the poetic translation of that line in the post title in case Google was wrong.
I first heard a version of this song by The Unthanks, and I liked it, because I like The Unthanks in general, but it didn’t make a lasting impression on me or anything. But when I heard Eithne’s version for the first time last week, it really affected my brain (well, just like the whole album, but I think this is one of its highlights for me), and I immediately thought that this song is just meant to be sung exactly the way she does, and with an Irish accent, or better yet, in Irish! As you can hear for yourselves, it is very minimalistic in form – just Eithne’s fragile, yet as always, almost eerily expressive vocals with very spare and gentle instrumentation. – It is so beautiful in that bittersweet way that makes you feel like you want it to never end, while at the same time twisting your soul and making it fall apart into aching but ecstatic pieces. And since it’s really two songs in one, it’s over six minutes of this gentle, blissful torture.
My Inner MishMash 