Do you know of any songs that speak of loss, of losing a loved one? I mean death, not a romantic breakup though I guess that could apply. It’s for a documentary I’m making. The only one I know off the top of my head is Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel,” but it’s too religious…
There’s one about the loss of the boatload of teenagers who drowned on the way over to Galway from the Aran Islands - I can’t remember the name unfortunately - it’s in Irish.
flowers of the forest
o.k., Jack..here you go, the sine qua non of loss:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGKAft_LzdU&feature=related
The danger when men cease to believe in God is not that they will believe in nothing but that they will believe anything - G.K. Chesterton
Yes, but it also uses words keyed to a religion.
Perhaps a modal tune (no words to get in the way)?
We’ve been talking about Cold Frosty Morning in the traditional strings forum here (subject; fiddle obsession) and Jim posted a version he did for Youtube.
Last night a friend sent me this. I have no idea where he got it from.
"The fiddle tune Cold, Frosty Morning remembers the battle of Culloden Moor. On the morning of April 16, 1746 an English Army of 8,000 massacred a Scottish army of 7,000 ending the Jacobite Rebellion in Scotland.
George II gave the Duke of Cumberland instructions that the Scots had to be punished for supporting Charles Stuart. Many who had joined Stuart’s army were executed and their land given to those who had remained loyal to King George.
After their victory the English were determined to make sure the highland clans did not rebel again. The English army killed any Highlander they could find. Even Highlanders who had not joined the rebellion were slaughtered. There were even cases of highland women and children being murdered. As a result of these atrocities the Duke of Cumberland was given the name Butcher. "
I don’t want anything religious. Thanks, though.
I think you might mean the song Eanach Dhúin (Anglicised: Anachuin), composed by the blind poet Reachtabhra (1784-1835). Dunno if it was just teenagers, but but the tragedy is still commemorated. I have one version for the pipes that evokes the swooning of sinking; you can almost see the water’s surface receding away above. Spooky.
Barbara Allen and Molly Malone are both old Irish or English ballads that involve dying people.
Damn, you secularists are hard to please!..o.k., lets go with this (speakers on):
http://www.contemplator.com/tunebook/ireland/armagh.htm
Watch out for those flash girls, Jack, and by all means let us know if the history channel picks up the docu.
Here are two of my favorite songs of loss.
Tim O’Brien, “Time to Learn”
You can read the lyrics at http://www.timobrien.net/Lyrics2.cfm?ID=118
Maura O’Connell’s version on her album “Don’t I Know” is beautiful. (I DON’T play that one as a sing-along CD in the car because I don’t think it’s safe to drive while crying.)
If it’s the loss of a mother, Si Kahn’s “Motherless Child” is classic. It may sound quasi-religious: lines like “Take her by the soul and lead her through my mind/ past ears grown stone and deaf, past eyes grown wet and blind” but it it’s addressed to “Death” not to a god.
I didn’t find the lyrics on the net when I just did a quick search, but you can hear a sample of Mark Weems and Julee Glaub’s version at cdbaby at:
http://cdbaby.com/cd/littlewindows
(Motherless Child is track 5)
Oops. I reread your original request. For a documentary you will have to get copyright permission to use either of these.
Dick Gaughan’s version of the scots lament Floo’ers of the Forest is all about loss. If you’re at the kind of funeral at which pipers play, this tune is the scottish ‘taps’.
The even more gorgeous minor-key melody, The Mist-covered Mountains of Home, also scottish, was fitted with a set of words about the Highland clearances by a singer named Jim McLean a while back:
Hush, hush, time to be sleeping
Hush, hush, dreams come a-creeping
Dreams of peace and of freedom
So smile in your sleep, bonny babyOnce our valleys were ringing
With songs of our children singing
But now sheep bleat till the evening
And shielings lie empty and brokenWe stood with heads bowed in prayer,
While factors laid our cottages bare,
The flames licked the clear mountain air,
And many were dead by the morning.Where is our proud highland mettle
Our troops once so fierce in battle
Now stand, cowed, huddled like cattle
And wait to be shipped o’er the ocean*No use pleading or praying
For gone, gone is all hope of staying
Hush, hush, the anchor’s a-weighing
Don’t cry in your sleep, bonny baby
*to North Carolina and Nova Scotia, btw. Evicted because there was more money to be made raising sheep instead of crofters.
Fiddle player Johnny Cunningham recorded a lovely version (as a slow air) on one of the Celtic Fiddle Festival CDs a few years ago.
Where Have All the Flowers Gone, by Pete Seeger.
“Kilkelly, Ireland” (written by Peter Jones and performed by lots o’ folks)
Find the cost of freedom
Buried in the ground.
Mother Earth will swallow you,
Lay your body down.
- Steven Stills
Hi simon
I tried to get a youtube vid of the song, but could only find one, and it murders the poor song.
So how about another Jim McLean wrist slitter. The Massacre at Glencoe sung by the Corries
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cPitxtk4m0
(Chorus)
O Cruel is the snow
That sweeps Glencoe
And covers the grave O Donald
And cruel was the foe
That raped Glencoe
And murderd the house of
MacDonaldThey came in a blizzard
We offered them heat
A roof o’er their heads
Dry shoes for their feet
We wined them and dined them
They ate of our meat
And they slept in the house of
MacDonald(Chorus)
They came from Fort William
Wi’ murder in mind
The Campbells had orders
King William had signed
Put all to the sword
These words were underlined
And leave none alive called
MacDonald(Chorus)
They came in the night
When the men were asleep
This band O’ Argyles
Through snow soft and deep
Like murdering foxes
Among helpless sheep
They slaughtered the house of
MacDonald(Chorus)
Some died in their beds
At the hand of the foe
Some fled in the night
And were lost in the snow
Some lived to accuse him
That struck the first blow
But gone was the house of
MacDonald
David
I don’t think Eric Clapton’s Tears in Heaven is particularly religious, even though it mentions heaven.
The first one that popped in my mind was-
Idumea (it’s from a hymnal but no mention of heaven/etc)
And am I born to die?
To lay this body down!
And must my trembling spirit fly
Into a world unknown?
A land of deepest shade,
Unpierced by human thought;
The dreary regions of the dead,
Where all things are forgot!
Soon as from earth I go,
What will become of me?
Eternal happiness or woe
Must then my portion be!
The full bodied version-
my favorite version-(but then I love Tim Eriksen almost as much as RT) warning though, it has the fourth verse which could be interpreted as “religious”
and one more by Tim Eriksen-
I wish, I wish my baby was born
wish, I wish my baby was born
And sitting on its papa’s knee
And me, poor girl
And me, poor girl, were dead and gone
And the green grass growing o’er my feet
I ain’t ahead, nor never will be
Till the sweet apple grows
On a sour apple tree
But still I hope, But stil I hope the time will come
When you and I shall be as one
I wish, I wish my love had died
And sent his soul to wander free
Then we might meet where ravens fly
Let our poor body rest in peace
The owl, the owl
Is a lonely bird
It chills my heart
With dread and terror
That someone’s blood
There on his wing
That someone’s blood
There on his feather.
then there’s Ashokan Farwell-although it’s already been used in a documentary- 
but it fit’s the bill perfectly as a tune of loss-
I may think of more, but right now I’ve got a brand new reed in my mouth and a horn waiting to be played…
Of course there’s a bunch of laments in pipe music that would be suitable.
Little Boy Blue
by Eugene Field (1850-1895)
The little toy dog is covered with dust,
But sturdy and stanch he stands;
And the little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.
“Now, don’t you go till I come,” he said,
“And don’t you make any noise!”
So, toddling off to his trundle-bed,
He dreamt of the pretty toys;
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue—
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!
Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place—
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face;
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.
The Irish Rovers made it into a song on their “Tales to Warm Your Mind” LP. It always makes me cry. Don’t know if you’d have to get permission from them to use it in a documentary though.
James Taylor - Fire and Rain.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=64_303eHaTM
A nice cover of Eric Bogles “My youngest Son came home today”
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-9LzkzZCcMI
John Prine covering Steve Goodmans “My Old Man”
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RH2YQAXjwWY
George Jones - He stopped loving her today.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz2aNifcy20
Luke Kelly and the Dubliners - The Unquiet Grave.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pfgwxn95U6g
That’s all I can think of now but I’ll probably remember a few more after I get some sleep.
Slan,
D. 