Today I have an interesting tune from Sweden for you all. As its title says, it’s a bridal march from Älvdalen – a locality in Dalarna in central Sweden. – What’s so interesting about this song is the language that it’s sung in, because no, it’s not Swedish. This song is written in Elvdalian, a little language spoken in the area of Älvdalen, which from what I’ve heard is recognised as a dialect of Swedish, yet I, as a Swedish learner, can barely understand a word of this song, and the little bits I think I do understand I’m not even sure if they mean what I think they do, and I’ve heard Swedes say that they can understand Norwegian better than Elvdalian. Sadly it is not recognised officially as a minority language of Sweden, so it’s not protected as well as it could be, and so it’s in danger of death. It’s a peculiar little language ‘cause to me it doesn’t really sound much like Swedish. Some of the sounds remind me a lot more of Icelandic, and it’s kind of odd that it uses w where Swedish uses v, so it also sounds a little like English. Plus it’s curiously nasal and even has the letter ą in its alphabet like Polish.
Systerpolskan is a folk female group, consisting of folk artists from Uppland and Dalarna. It was established by Benny Andersson together with some group members, including Lena Willemark who I think is the most well-known out of these ladies. Benny Andersson is also their producer. Their name literally means the sister polska, but, unlike what Polish people are often inclined to think when they see the word polska in relation to Swedish folk, it has nothing to do with Poland. 😀 Polska is just a type of Swedish dance, which could have possibly been brought there from Poland.
The tune to this song is traditional, and the lyrics are written by Severin Solders.
Today I’d like to share with you some music from the great, Nottingham-born English folk singer that is Anne Briggs. She is quite an intriguing case in English folk music. She started her singing career in 1963 as a young girl, discovered by A.L. Lloyd and Ewan McColl. Her music was received very positively, people were in awe of her pure voice, she collaborated with a lot of influential people of the mid-20th century English folk scene and had herself a strong influence on British folk music and female folk singers, even people outside of folk circles like Jimmy Page. However, Anne had one big challenge – she absolutely hated the sound of her recorded voice. – She was also apparently very nervous when she had to sing, despite she did it so well. I think stories of people like her could be very empowering for people who struggle with stuff like low self-esteem or anxiety, to see that there are people who experience similar feelings even when they’re really great at something, so the fact that you feel you suck at it doesn’t necessarily have to be that it’s what everyone else thinks as well. The emotional toll associated with her singing career must have been too much for her though, after all, because she retired fro music in 1973, and apparently lives semi-reclusively. She still continues to have a strong influence on many folk musicians and the folk music scene as a whole. I even once shared some two years ago a song performed by Julie Fowlis, called Go Your Way, which was written and first recorded by Anne Briggs. Sandy Denny (whose music I’ve also shared on here and who almost became one of my faza people) wrote a song in tribute to Anne Briggs called The Pond And the Stream. Richard Thompson’s Beeswing is also inspired by her.
She Moved/Moves Through the Fair is an Irish traditional tune, one version of which (an instrumental one, played by harpist Carol Thompson) I’ve already shared and in that post I explained a bit about the song. You can read that post
Since it’s my parents’ civil wedding anniversary today, and only today they realised that it must have been a Friday 13th, my question for you is the following:
What’s the most inappropriate song to play at a wedding?
My answer:
I haven’t been to very many weddings at all, but a lot of the ones that I have been to, or that I’ve heard of, have featured a song that I think is incredibly cringeworthy to play at this very time. I don’t know if my parents had it too at their wedding, but if so, then it could seriously be seen as a double jinx. It’s a bit like a tradition to play this at weddings, as if people had no idea what it’s really about but just think it’s some rather sentimental, for many people beautiful, song about a wedding from the bride’s perspective. For the longest time I thought I was the only human being in Poland who noticed this or felt amused and/or bothered in even the slightest way by the dichotomy, and that everyone else only cares that this song is only ABOUT a wedding, and not necessarily perfect FOR a wedding, but some years ago I learned that my Mum feels this way too so perhaps there are even more of us outsiders who sometimes pay attention to lyrics. It’s really quite silly though how people can’t even understand the lyrics in their own language. 😀
Like I said, it’s written from the perspective of a bride who is writing her “last” love letter to a guy she’s actually in love with, on her wedding day where she’s supposed to marry another man. The guy she’s actually in love with is presumably an actor, because she says she saw him “once” “in technicolour”. She explicitly states that she doesn’t love the guy she’s about to marry, and that it’s the actor guy who plays the main role in her life, “but a girl cannot walk through the world completely alone”. And then in the chorus she describes how they’re already bringing her a wedding dress and a veil and all sorts of stuff that can give us some idea what this wedding actually looks like, and she concludes that they will carry her in a lift to heaven. I guess it’s this chorus that plays on people’s imagination and maybe it’s the only thing people pay attention to, and it makes an impression like it’s quite a grand wedding in a way I guess, so maybe that’s why people are so eager to play or perform it at weddings. Alternatively they don’t know what technicolour is so they get confused, but like I said, she says it clearly that she doesn’t love the one she’s marrying so I don’t think this knowledge is necessary, I don’t really have any idea about technicolour either other than it’s something with the cinema.
It’s quite hilarious, but also a bit jarring and grating and like I said also rather silly, and if I was superstitious I’d probably feel really concerned about couples who made a choice to have it played at their weddings. 😀 And personally I also just find this song in general rather cringey and kind of pathetic in a way.
It feels like I haven’t written anything in quite a while again, so let’s first catch up on some music, as I haven’t posted any music for a particularly long time.
I’d like to show you a few songs of one of my very first favourite Celtic music singers – Loreena MCKennitt. – Alongside Enya, Aine Minogue and a few others, she was keeping me sane during a time that was particularly difficult emotionally in my life, and she was one of the first artists associated with Celtic but also generally folk music that I’ve started to listen to a lot, and one of the first harpists whose music I’ve heard. I really like her dramatic soprano, my friend Jacek from Helsinki loved her and he used to say her voice is chil inducing, it indeed is very very expressive. I love the wide range of inspirations Loreena uses in her music, she’s not only into Celtic music but also oriental music, she has adapted various poems or pieces of literary work into pieces of music or has written her own music inspired by literature, legends, myths, historical/legendary figures etc. It’s like her each album has a bit of a theme that is going on throughout the album. I like how self-sufficient she is. Apart from being a singer, songwriter, composer and harpist, she has also her own record label – Quinlan Road – and also plays a few other instruments other than harp, she’s her own manager and seems to like running the show just on her own. And I like her harp play so very much. She’s one of the better Celtic harpists out there in my opinion.
Loreena MCKennitt is from Canada, she has Irish and Scottish roots (and her father’s name was JACK! that explains everything, doesn’t it? 😉 ) and she currently lives in Ontario.
The song I want to show you in this post is a ballad called “Annachie Gordon”. If I remember well, this is one of the balads in the collection of Child’s Ballads, and it is English. I like many contemporary versions of this piece but Loreena’s is the best, because of her vocals and because of the magnificent harp! It was also the first version of this song I’ve heard, and I immediately fell in love with it. The plot of the ballad is quite, um, cliche, and now as I’m older than when I discovered “Annachie Gordon” it’s hard for me to listen to it without my sarcastic brain commenting and criticising the storyline (I basically think looking at it from these days perspective, the heroine, Jeannie, makes an impression of someone quite manipulative, I understand her pain when she was faced with having to live being married to a man she didn’t love instead of her beloved Annachie, but the scene where she falls on her knees before her father and dies looks, well, yeah, manipulative, you start to wonder if she’s going to suddenly rise up as soon as everyone leaves her alone and run away with Annachie as far from lord Sulton and her family as possible. 😀 I know, I know, I’m crazy and overanalysing). I also think life would be so easy if we really could just switch off and die when life throws sh*t at us as in the case of Jeannie and Annachie. But well, it is a ballad. And still, it is a beautiful one. I remember being absolutely fascinated by it, and for some reason because of it I really loved the name Annachie, which, you must admit, is a very unusual name, I’ve never heard in any other context or on anyone other than Annachie Gordon. I’ve even named a character in one of my short stories Annachie after him. Though now my tastes have changed and I think it lacks masculinity and looks like a fancy elaboration of Anna in the style of Annalee or Annamae, but of the more kreativ kind. 😀 Well, I guess it was apparently recreated from some old feminine name actually. Anyway, here’s the song. Hope you’ll enjoy it too. 🙂
My Inner MishMash 