Got a call today from the Museum of Fine Art in Boston where they are teaching a course on the use of traditional instruments in pop music. They were specifically looking for examples where bagpipes were used in widely recognized pop songs. I could recall some instances where Loud Highland Bagpipes and Uilleann pipes were involved but nothing off-hand for NSP (other than Ryofu).
Appreciate any input related to NSP – and any other types while you’re at it.
For extra credit, can you come up with any pop songs that use a hurdy-gurdy?
Appropriate topic since it’s the anniversary of Paul McCartney’s ‘Mull of Kintyre’ reaching #1 on the UK charts. I know there’s a Rod Stewart song with GHB. Of course there’s AC/DC 'Long Way To The Top." There was some new-agey song in the '90 by a band called ‘Forest of Trees’ or something that had GHB.
Uilleann pipes have Kate Bush’s cover of “Rocket Man.”
NSPs have Sting’s “Fields of Gold” although Eva Cassidy’s cover was probably better.
would that this list was longer…! all I need is for one Jonas tune with pipes and I can finally zero my mastercard.
anyhoo Steve: did they list all those beatles/sitar tunes? Traffic & Donovan used to use some exotic instruments, too, iirc.
The Rod Stewart tune is ‘Forever young’ (hahaha..he must be a baby boomer)
& then there’s all those movie soundtracks, titantic, braveheart,
and the opening music from ‘Xena-warrior princess’ (as my ex-brother inlaw from Texas once commented on ‘Xena’: [and I quote] “dang I love them history shows”)
Call me crazy, but I seem to recall the Bee Gees using a GHB bagpipe (albeit a sample) in their track “Alone”. I say it’s most likely a sample because it sure doesn’t sound like it’s in the chanter key of Bb. Great song on a side note…
The main riff from Big Country’s “In a Big Country” is supposed to sound like bagpipes even though it’s played on a guitar.
And thanks for beating me to Paul McCartney and Rod Stewart! YARG!!
Matt
P.S. Eva Cassidy has a lovely voice, but I still think her version of Fields of Gold can’t stand up to the original. It’s a nice arrangement don’t get me wrong, but Sting is much better. Besides, I really love the Northumbrian pipes he used on the Soul Cages as played by the wonderful Kathryn Tickell.
Some time in the late '80s, John Farnham had a huge hit in Australia called “You’re the Voice”, which featured a big GHB segment. Can’t say I’m proud to possess this knowledge, but there you go.
Davy Spillane weighs in beautifully with the uilleann pipes on Elvis Costello’s album “Spike”. His main contributions are in the songs “Any King’s Shilling” and “Tramp the Dirt Down” (a viscerally anti-Thatcher number), but he also chips in with his drones on “Miss Macbeth”. Costello’s voice and Spillane’s pipes make for an unexpectedly lovely blend. And as an added bonus, Donal Lunny is on string duty.
James beat me to the punch with the Spillane contributions on Elvis Costello’s “Spike” album…There are some clips on YouTube of Costello playing live on Irish TV in '89 with a backing band that included Cormac Breathnach on flute, Seán Óg Potts on pipes, and Dónal Lunny.
There was a Depeche Mode song with uilleann pipes on it, I seem to recall. I seem to also remember reading about a heavy metal band from Northumberland that used Northumbrian pipes…Can’t remember what it was called.
Don’t forget that around the turn of the century, every major record label in Spain was desperate to have a celebrity gaiteiro/a.
Quite frankly, I’ve really grown to hate the use of any sort of pipes in most any sort of popular music, mostly because there is such a clichéd sound associated with uilleann pipes or GHB that it’s almost impossible to escape from at this point. I’d love to hear either instrument used in an innovative, unrecognizable way, but there’s been such baggage heaped on both instruments that that would be awfully hard to do at this point…
I play with a friend in a little electronic music project, mostly on bass. My partner had been at me for quite a while to do something with pipes in it, but I was very resistant because I didn’t want to wind up with the usual “pipes cackhandedly pasted onto something where they don’t belong” kind of thing. What I wound up doing was making a recording of myself playing “Earl of Seaforth’s Salute” on smallpipes and told my friend (who knew nothing about traditional music, let alone piobaireachd) to mess with it as she saw fit. What she wound up doing was cutting it up and taking a few split-second clips of it and peppering a song we were working on with these heavily effects-ridden gracenote beeps and blips. The result was actually more interesting than I expected. I’ll post a link to it when we’re finished with it.
You are quite correct. The Depeche Mode song is called “Judas” and appeared on their album Songs of Faith and Devotion. You can hear the uilleann pipes being played as the intro before the lyrics start…
If you want to hear some interesting use of various European bagpipes, there is a folk metal band from Germany called In Extremo. They have a song called “Liam” that features uilleann pipes, and a good majority of their other songs use some German pipes or other medieval dudelsacks.
…but please make sure not to take their earlier albums, let’s say: their stuff before 2005 - it’s just nicer to listen to pipes played by people who finally found out, how to use them properly… There’s a whole scene of “medieval”-inspired metal- even techno-projects using bagpipes in Germany, but most of them really suck on the pipes (nice picture… ).
While we’re at it, there are some great Punk-, Rock-, and Metalbands with Bagpipes (naturally! Remember: AC/DC and kORN used GHB on early albums!)!
I suggest:
Mudmen, a Canadian (Hard-)Rockband with two award-winning Highlandpipers
Enter the Haggis, a Canadian Rockband with frequent GHB-use
Great Big Sea, a Newfoundland Folkrockband sometimes using GHB
Dropkick-Murphys (of course!), a Red-Skin-Oi-Punk band from Boston with GHB,
Real McKenzies, similar
Dixebra, a Ska-Punk-Band from Asturies (NW-Spain) with excessive and very good use of traditional (and electronic) Asturian Gaita
Ramoneurs de Menhirs, a Breton Folkpunkband using Biniou and Bombarde (medieval Breton oboe, sounding not unlike GHB)
Black Label Zone, pipers from a Bagad (Breton Pipeband) doing Hardrock
Eluveitie, a Swiss (!) Folkrockpop-band (used to be Folk-Metal, but their latest album changed the style - unfortunetely… ) with extensive use of different pipes and Hurdy-gurdy
Aes Dana (beware! There’s a terribly kitschy New-Age-Easy-Listening-Band of the same name!!!), a french-Breton Folkmetal-Band using Bombarde
Glorystrokes, an English Folkmetal-project (no pipes, but great accordeon)
Korpiklaani, a Finnish Folkmetalband with accordeon, fiddle, whistles and sometimes torupill (Estonian pipes)
Znich, a Belarus Folk-Black-Metal Band using Dudmaisis (last two albums, first one was boring Black-Metal without trad. influences. I’m incertain about their political intentions, though, since I don’t understand Belarus… )
Mark Saul, an incredible Highlandpiper from Australia. He usually does Folk-Techno but has a few Metal-inspired pieces on his album as well.
There are other projects, esp. in the “Pagan”-Metal-scene, using bagpipes as well. But many of them have racist tendencies (e.g. “Slavland” from Poland, “Astaarth” from France),also their piping is not very convincing…
Also, there are quite some projects of electronic (wave-) music in France, Belgium, Germany and, as it seems, also Austria (!) using Hurdy-gurdy, Cornemuse and/or Schaeferpfeife. Also, there are a few Folk-Hiphop-Bands using pipes (e.g. Manau, Bretagne or Lecker Sachen, Germany).
And there are loooots of folkpopbands using pipes in practically every nation having a bagpiping-tradition…
Make of that, what You will - personally, I dislike it, if Pipes are used only as an accessoire to spice up pop music a bit. But if tradition want’s to be alive, it has to evolve as well. So I really like traditional (inspired) music played on trad. instruments in a contemporary way. It simply shows, tradition is still alive…
You are referring to In Extremo here, correct? I’ve been slowing going through their studio albums, since I typically dislike live albums.
There is a piper out here in Los Angeles I really like named John Allan, he has a celtic rock band called Stand Easy that features a ton of GHB. I think you would like them Celtpastor since its mostly traditional tunes put to rock chords, but even the original stuff rocks!
I will have to check out Mudmen since I am not familiar with them…
Of course! They’re great! Just forgot to mention them (silly me…), thanx for reminding me They still have only one CD out so far, right?
I also forgot to mention Rusty Nails from NYC - kinda minimalistic “Punk meets mixture between Tom Waits and David Bowie” with GHB. Weird, but worth listening to…
There’s a whole scene of “medieval”-inspired metal- even techno-projects using bagpipes in Germany, but most of them really suck on the pipes (nice picture… 
) with extensive use of different pipes and Hurdy-gurdy
They still have only one CD out so far, right?