I was flipping through a music book today when I saw The sheet music to the foggy dew. I have been playing for a couple years now so I picked it up pretty fast. What a cool song. It sounds so good, for a simple song. I am glad I came across it. This will become one of my favorites.
O’Neill’s has 2 versions of Foggy Dew – I alternate versions when I play that, and I love the way it sounds.
Tery
It was the second Irish tune I learned and I still love it.
bump
this song made it on a wish list of tunes to learn, but i havent been able to find it about.. could one of you kind souls point me in the right direction of a website or book or somesuch where i could find it?
thanks!
Here you go. The ABC Tunefinder lists several versions. You can either download the ABC or print out a GIF or PDF of the sheet music.
If this doesn’t work for you for some reason, it’s also in “Irelands 110 Best Tin Whistle Tunes.”
Redwolf
See Redwolf’s link above to JC’s ABC Tune Finder for The Foggy Dew. The most widely played version as far as I know is the 12th one down (Em). One of the easiest to play, most hauntingly beautiful tunes written. Love it.
Denny
There are 4 in the key of D. Which one is the best of these? Are they the same?
I just started learning The Foggy Dew today to add in to a set of marches incl. Dawning of the Day, Roddy McCauley, Star of the County Down, O’Neill’s, The Boys of Wexford and The Minstrel Boy. These are all fun tunes and not too hard to learn for beginners.
Mike
The Foggy Dew is about a battle.
In the 50s the Weavers used
the tune for another song,
Over The Hills, which is
a love song. That’s how
I learned it and was surprised,
and a little saddened, that
a perfect tune for a love
song was principally used
for a song about a battle,
that Ireland lost. Best
Here it is on abc with the love song version lyrics.
Still wondering which one is best of the 4 in D ???
I like the song; very beautiful. I also like the way Sinead O’Connor does it on the Chieftains 40 yr celebration CD. Very unique and ear-catching.
I had never known that this was a song about war. I did some researching and found a neat link. It has definately changed the way I now will play it, in order to bring out these emotions that I did not know were there.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/easterrising/songs/rs_song06.shtml
Thanks. I knew it was about a battle,
but not about the Easter Uprising.
Here is the most beautiful
music of the Easter
Uprising, one of the great
poems in the English language.
Easter, 1916
I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-certury houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
That woman’s days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes down the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof plashes within it;
the long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone’s in the midst of all.
Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven’s part, our part
To murmer name upon name,
As a mother names her child
when sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, No, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse–
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
W. B. Yeats
thanks for the link!!!
On 2003-02-12 14:45, The Whistling Elf wrote:
I like the song; very beautiful. I also like the way Sinead O’Connor does it on the Chieftains 40 yr celebration CD. Very unique and ear-catching.
Pedant’s Corner: A thing is either unique or not; one cannot have gradations of uniqueness. (Quote from Simon the boy genius, Alan Partridge radio series)
I like ear-catching though! 