Today I’d like to share with you a song by a singer whom I first heard only last Friday, despite she seems to have been a thing for a long time. Maybe it’s because I guess I’m generally less familiar with American Celtic music scene vs Irish or British. Amelia Hogan is an Irish American from San Francisco, though she also has Scottish and British ancestry, and she has been drawn to Sean-Nos singing and to Celtic music in general since a very young age. This song comes from her debut solo album Transplants. I’ve already shared two versions of this song one by Órla Fallon and the other by Eilis Kennedy. I really like it because it reminds me of our Sofi, who liked the funny lilting chorus when she was a toddler. 😀
For today I have a song by Clannad for you, which you may know even if you’re not a big Clannad fan because it is the theme song of the movie Braveheart. Below is the translation of the Irish lyrics that I found here.
Let’s listen to the song that I have picked for yesterday, but didn’t manage to share in time. I decided on this very soothing lullaby from Órla Fallon’s album of the same title, which she released in 2012. I generally love a good lullaby, and this album is full of them. This isn’t the first lullaby Fromm that album that I’m sharing on here.
Today, I’d like to share with you this very popular Irish song, which is actually originally a poem written by William Butler Yeats. It was through this poem that I actually first learned about Yeats when I started taking an interest in the Celtic cultures. I have already shared one version of this song on here in the past, sung by Loreena McKennitt.
I was listening to this song yesterday, and I was sure I must have shared it on here before, but turns out not. So I’m sharing it now. It comes from her 2006 album Signature and it is my most favourite track from this album.
Today, I want to share with you Órla Fallon’s ethereal version of this very popular Irish folk ballad. This is, as you may recall, not the first version of Siúil a Rún that I’m sharing on here, the first one I featured was by Anúna and in that post I also shared a bit about this song’s background. Others were by Celtic Woman and Clannad. Órla Fallon actually used to be a member of both Anúna and Celtic Woman, and is particularly well-known from the latter. Her rendition of this song comes from her debut solo album The Water is Wide from 2005.
Today, I want to share with you another song by Clannad. It refers to a glen in Gweedore – i.e. where Clannad hail from – which is known as Poisoned Glen in English.
Last year, I shared with you Pilot, the first song by Lucy Blue that I heard and that I instantly liked. I’ve been listening to this Irish artist ever since. I like her personal songwriting, and I like how “blue” overall her music is. So I thought I’d share another song by her, one that just came out earlier this month. About nostalgia for home, and how you miss it and want to come back even though you’d always thought you wanted to leave. There’s even a line in Irish, which makes it feel all the more authentic to me.
For today, I’d like to share with you a song from the famous Irish all-female group Celtic Woman, whose music I’ve enjoyed for years and have shared a few of their songs on here already. This one comes from their album Ancient Land. Mná na hÉireann is actually a 18th-century poem, written by Ulster poet Peadar Ó Doirnín, but it was later set to an air composed by Seán Ó Riada another of whose compositions, Mo Ghile Mear,, sung by a former Celtic Woman member, I’ve featured on here before. Women of Ireland has been performed by all kinds of musical artists, not even just Irish ones. I believe the first one I heard was by Mike Oldfield when I was a kid, others include Sinéad O’connor, Kate Bush or Jeff Beck. A lot of such old Irish poems personify Ireland, whether as a mother or a goddess, or, as is the case here, as a beautiful woman who is mistreated by the English and the Irishmen need to defend her, though are not always successful at it. Here, the lyrical subject is also mutually in love with the woman in question. As you may know, I myself don’t speak Irish (yet), so couldn’t write a translation, but there is an article about it on Wikipedia which contains several different translation of this song. At the time of releasing Ancient Land, Celtic Woman consisted of Eabha McMahon, Mairead Carlin, Megan Walsh and Tara McNeill, the latter also playing the violin and harp.
Today, I want to share with you a very interesting song by Clannad. It was written in the 1960’s by Canadian folk singer Bonnie Dobson, after she talked about nuclear apocalypse with her friends. It is a dialogue between the last woman and man on Earth who have survived a nuclear holocaust. Clannad’s version was the first one of this song that I heard, and initially I didn’t know what was the background of tis song, yet I still found it kind of creepy because I assumed the man was some sort of psychopath gaslighting the woman. 😀 I like songs with unusual lyrics that aren’t all about love, so I found this one very interesting, but even more so when I actually found out what it is about. I like Bonnie Dobson’s original version as well, and as it happens, my brain considers some parts of the melody slightly sensorily creepy – not seriously creepy in a way that would actually make me freeze and creep me out like more sensorily creepy sounds/sequences of sounds/tunes/harmonies do, but just enough to contribute even more to the overall weird feel of the song.
This is yet another version of Two Sisters, a folk song that is known in many different parts of the world, or at least Europe, with slightly different plot lines. You can also check out the ones I’ve posted previously on here, by Loreena McKennitt,Clannad, and Emily Portman.
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.
The song I have for you today is from an album that, although recorded over 20 years ago, and released almost a decade ago, is very new to me, and even though it’s only the beginning of February, I feel very confident in saying that this is probably going to be one of my most exciting musical discoveries of the year. And not just the album, but also the artist behind it – Eithne ní Uallacháin. – Maybe there’s even some minor faza going on at this point, because I only came across Bilingua (that’s the name of the whole album) last Friday, and have now listened through the entire thing five times, not counting the number of times I’ve listened to individual tracks and other recordings by Eithne ní Uallacháin. It’s strange that, although I’ve been exploring Celtic music for years, it’s taken me so long to come across Eithne and her music, even though she is a very important figure on the folk music scene of Ireland. But apparently there is a right time for everything, so perhaps this was just the right time for me to discover her and appreciate her music as it deserves to be appreciated, perhaps if I’d come across it earlier, it wouldn’t have made as strong an impression on me as it did.
Eithne ní Uallacháin was born in Ballina in 1957. She grew up in an Irish-speaking and musical family as her father was a collector of songs from the Oriel area in Ulster and encouraged both Eithne and her sister to sing. She married fiddle player Gerry O’Connor, who was also her long-time musical partner, and together they formed a duo called Lá Lugh. Eithne was not only a very competent and expressive singer of traditional Irish songs, but she also wrote her own songs, and was not afraid to experiment with music, mixing old melodies with her own words or vice versa, and she sang in English and Irish. She also played the flute. In 1998 she began recording material for a solo album. At the same time, she was struggling with severe depression, which, if I understand correctly, was a result of, or in any case accompanied by, a debilitating physical illness. A year later Eithne very sadly took her own life. All the recordings of her vocals had been completed by that time. From then on, it was Eithne’s son, Dónal O’Connor, who worked on Bilingua , together with her producer Shaun “Mudd” Wallace. However, there were some contractual problems along the way, which is why it was only released in 2014, after fifteen years. It ended up receiving lots of positive attention from various media, both English and Irish.
The whole record is an absolute treat. It’s full of emotions and features influences from various other countries’ traditional music, such as Breton (thanks to guitarist Gilles le Bigot who also worked with Eithne on her earlier albums) Scandinavian or African. As I’ve said before, Eithne is an extremely expressive singer, which is something I always appreciate in folk music. There’s a fair bit of language play here, as Eithne smoothly switches between Irish and English, and sometimes into Latin. I like every single song on this record, which is why I had a bit of a hard time picking something, and why in the end I decided that tomorrow I am going to share one more song from this album, just so I don’t have to limit myself to one. 😀 For the first one, I chose the opening, tribal-sounding track, from which the whole album took its name. To me, it almost sounds like a tribute to language in general, which really appeals to the voracious linguaphile in me. I love all this energy flowing through it that sounds almost euphoric.
Today I’d like to share with you another piece by Irish harpist Lynn Saoirse on here. Most of what I have shared by her are tunes composed by Turlough O’Carolan, as she has recorded a lot of his music, and so seems to be the case with this set of planxty tunes, but I don’t know anything more about them.
Well, Christmas is coming very soon (and it feels even sooner in some European countries like Poland, where we practically celebrate Christmas Eve most festively of all the Christmas days), so, it feels like just the right time to share a Christmas carol, even though I’ll traditionally be sharing something Christmassy on Christmas Eve as well. Of course, it HAS to be a Celtic Christmas carol. Well okay, technically, the carol itself is English, but the singer is Irish – Maire Brennan, whose music I have shared many times on here, both solo and as part of Clannad. – I like her version of it.
Today, I’d like to share a harp piece by Diana Rowan with you. This is the second one featured on this blog. Diana is originally from Dublin, but is currently based in the US. I believe that the title of this track refers to a French poem called “Clair de Lune”, written by Paul Verlaine, which inspired Claude Debussy to compose his famous work of the same name. THis poem includes a line “Your soul is a chosen landscape”.
Today, I’d like to share with you another tune by Irish harpist Celia Briar. It’s a traditional tune, originally a reel, but Celia’s version is a bit slower.
Today I have for you a traditional Irish ballad from County Armagh played by the harpist Celia Briar. This song was first collected from a man called Jim O’Neill, and it is a so-called broken token ballad, that is one where there are two lovers who divide something between themselves, like a ring, as a love token, but then they part as he goes off to fight somewhere far away. This particular song is from the point of view of a man who sees a woman (her name is Nancy) and is immediately so enamoured with her that he proposes to her straight away. She rejects his proposal, saying that she’s already engaged with another man who is currently in the army and had fought at Waterloo. The man asks her the name of her lover, because he had also fought at Waterloo, and she shows him his name (Willie O’Reilly) embroidered on her mantle. As it happened, Willie O’Reilly was a good friend of his who died in the battle, and mentioned Nancy to him, giving him the ring which was the token of his love for Nancy, which understandably really upsets the girl. And here’s where things get potentially a little bit confusing. Because then suddenly Willie speaks about the day when they parted, and then later the narration switches to third-person, which makes one realise that Willie hasn’t died, he just decided to test her fidelity a bit, and she must have not recognised him.
Like I said this is an instrumental harp version that I’m sharing with you, but the first version of this song that I’ve heard was that of Sinead O’Connor, which is also good and perhaps I’ll share it at some point in future as well.
Today I ant to share a really cheerful, happy Irish folk song with y’all, sung by a former Celtic Woman member, Órla Fallon, a singer and harpist whose music I’ve shared on here several times already and whom I really like. This is also my favourite version of this song of those that I’m familiar with, although it’s a really cool song in general. The translation below comes from this website.
The sheep are eating the corn
The calves are drinking the milk
The potatoes are unsold
You senseless man Will you not go home! Siobhan is a fine young girl In her new dress down from the shop
I gaze at my golden guinea Spinning on the table
And my temper rises Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s here Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s morning Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s with us
She has spoken and I must leave here Don’t send me out into the dark
The night is cold and I’ll be perished
Stay inside with me a while And drink my fill until the morning Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s here Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s morning Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s with us
She has spoken and I must leave here Oh I go up and I go down
I try my luck with the tavern lady
I throw a guinea on the table And drink my fill until the morning Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s here Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s morning Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s with us
She has spoken and I must leave here I left my shoes in the house of ale
I left my stockings there as well
The cocks have all begun to crow
And I am forced to leave for home Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s here Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s morning Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s with us
She has spoken and I must leave here Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s here Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s morning Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s with us
She has spoken and I must leave here Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s here Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s morning Daybreak has not yet come – but now it’s with us
My Inner MishMash 