Songs from the Wireless

While Tom and I usually perform contemporary folk with a smattering of traditional and some of our own songs, we still do one or two songs that were featured in our Songbirds TV series several years ago - songs of Delia Murphy and her contemporaries.   I wrote about Delia here during the A to Z challenge a few years back - you might be interested to see where our folk music started in the popular sense.

Now every year in May we put together a special show of all of those old Irish songs for the Festival of Bealtaine.

This year we're heading down to Cork this weekend for a couple of gigs in libraries to tie in with it.

Bealtaine is the Irish word for May, but it is also one of the 4 Celtic seasons of the year - the 1st May is Bealtaine, the 1st of Summer.  And in the South of Ireland the government for many years have given funds for creativity for older people during the month of May and that is the Festival of Bealtaine.   So our programme of songs fits very well.

Each year we try to make it a bit different and this year the theme is Songs from The Wireless.  We're including songs from John McCormack and his contemporaries as well as all my fabulous women's songs - I'm working at learning "The Kerry Dances" at the minute, a very intricate song which dates back to the 1500s - Here's Count John McCormack singing it.  Now try and imagine it with guitar and a light contralto voice!!!!!  Me!!!




This is our last dip back into a full programme of these songs for a while to come.   Full steam ahead now to finish the new album.  But oh I will enjoy a wee jaunt down to Cork :)

Irish Songs in a Woman's Key: The Connemara Cradle Song

All the guitar books that I've come across, for folk or particularly for Irish songs, annotate the songs in keys that are suitable for men.   Women who are starting to play guitar and who haven't mastered the art of transposing yet ( a subject for another post) try to play the songs and give up really quickly because either the song is way too low or way too high.  This song is part of a series here with particular focus on Irish songs, both traditional and contemporary.  These keys are the keys in which I play and sing the songs.   

The Connemara Cradle Song is a beautiful lullaby first recorded by Delia Murphy in the 1930s. The chords are simple and can be made more simple by leaving out the Am/B move and just playing C on the word 'wind' and G on the word 'deep' and so on which makes it a 2 chord song - always useful to have.   I did a picture post about it here during the A to Z challenge - it includes my recording of the song.

The Connemara Cradle Song 

                             C     Am/B    Am                G

On wings of the wind o’er the dark rolling deep

                                                            C

Angels are coming to watch o’er thy sleep

                          Am/B   Am              G

Angels are com-ing to watch over thee

                                                            C

So list to the wind coming over the sea

G                       C     Am/B    Am                  G        

Hear the wind blow dear,       hear the wind blow

                                                            C

Lean your head and hear the wind blow

Oh wings of the night may your fury be crossed

May no-one that’s dear to our island be lost

Blow the wind gently calm be the foam

Shine the light brightly and guide them to home

Hear the wind blow dear, hear the wind blow

Lean your head and hear the wind blow

The currachs are sailing way out in the blue

Laden with herring of silvery hue

Silver the herring and silver the sea

And soon there’ll be silver for baby and me

Hear the wind blow dear, hear the wind blow

Lean your head and hear the wind blow

The currachs tomorrow will stand on the shore

And Daddy goes sailing, a sailing no more

The nets will be drying the nets heaven blessed

And safe in my arms dear contented he’ll rest

Hear the wind blow dear, hear the wind blow

Lean your head and hear the wind blow

This image isn't great - I will have to find a better way of picturing the sheet music.

All the best till next week.

The Queen of Connemara

The Queen of Connemara - Delia Murphy

If I Were A Blackbird was one of Delia's best known songs - hear a little bit of it here

Delia Murphy (1902 - 1971) was born and raised in Co. Mayo, and made her first recordings in 1938 - The Spinning Wheel and 3 Lovely Lasses from Bannion coming from the earliest batch. She became Ireland's first and arguably greatest musical ambassador and her contribution to the folk revival of the 50s and 60s was immeasurable. Her simple ballad style and endearing presentation on stage made her an almost overnight success on radio. Married to diplomat Tom Kiernan, Delia travelled the world, finally settling in Canada, only returning to live in Ireland in 1969.

With Tom, they were posted to the Vatican during the War years where she was involved in many escapades involving the escape of allied soldiers - later Tom became the first Irish Ambassador to Australia and Delia brought back many songs that later moved into the Irish Tradition. 

Among here many recordings was a song called the Queen of Connemara about a boat ... and this was where her nickname came from.

Delia's website is maintained by her grandson, the uilleann piper Ronan Browne at  www.deliamurphy.com

Delia Murphy was without doubt the single most influential singer to have recorded traditional songs in Ireland and she influenced a generation of singers that followed her. 

I made a series of documentaries for RTE television and with the help of guests from the various strands of Irish music we reconstructed the biographies of Delia and the other first Irish ladies of song who were recording in and around the 1950s.  The series was called Songbirds and I will write about it in a later post.    Our newer recordings of these well known songs (many of which I've shared here through these A to Z posts) is available through my website at www.filcampbell.com along with more information and a DVD of the series if you'd like to read more about her and the Songbirds series. 

Here's my version of If I Were A Blackbird

Connemara Cradle Song

Cradle Songs or Lullabies have a great history in Ireland .. and this is one of my favourites. 
Here's my recording of The Connemara Cradle Song  

I was brought up about 4 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean and I used to imagine that if I was really quiet, on windy nights, I could hear the waves.   

Nowadays, we spend a lot of time in Connemara and I've always loved that part of the country.  Here are the lyrics of the song along with some pics from our last trip down in Ballyconneely.

The Connemara Cradle Song (trad) lyrics

The Wild Atlantic Shore

On wings of the wind o'er the dark rolling deep

Angels are coming to watch o'er thy sleep

Angels are coming to watch over thee

So list to the wind coming over the sea

Hear the wind blow dear, hear the wind blow

Lean your head over and hear the wind blow

The Sky Road outside Clifden

 Oh, winds of the night, may your fury be crossed

May no one who's dear to our island be lost

Blow the winds gently, calm be the foam

Shine the light brightly and guide them back home

Hear the wind blow love, hear the wind blow

Lean your head over and hear the wind blow

The sun on the water makes my heart skip a beat

The currachs are sailing way out on the blue
Laden with herring of silvery hue
Silver the herring and silver the sea
And soon there'll be silver for baby and me
Hear the wind blow love, hear the wind blow
Lean your head over and hear the wind blow

Omie Strand

The currachs tomorrow will stand on the shore
And daddy goes sailing, a sailing no more
The nets will be drying, the nets heaven blessed
And safe in my arms dear, contented he'll rest
Hear the wind blow love, hear the wind blow
Lean your head over and hear the wind blow

Low tide

I was really surprised when I was playing over in America that people knew the song and could sing along easily with it - then I found out that it very closely resembles the American song "Down in the Valley"!

It was written by Frances Waller who also wrote the Spinning Wheel ….

And was first recorded by Delia Murphy in 1936.

The Spinning Wheel

For quite a while I've been wanting to write blogs about well known women's Irish songs and here's No. 1 in what will hopefully become a series.

The Spinning Wheel (John Frances Waller)

Listen to : Fil Campbell – The Spinning Wheel
From the TV series - Songbirds - the First Ladies of Irish Song

Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning
Close by the window young Eileen is spinning
Bent o’er the fire her blind grandmother sitting
Is crooning and moaning and drowsily knitting

When I first learned this as a little girl I pictured this beautiful young girl gazing longingly out of the window, dressed of course in a perfect long skirt, with long hair and an angelic face!!   The old lady was knowingly sitting in the corner  ....   

I can still see the sash window, the moon shining, the wood outside where the young lovers ended up walking ...  Isn't it funny the pictures that stay in  your head with a song:))

Delia Murphy

The Spinning Wheel is one of the most famous Irish folksongs  and was one of the first songs I learned as a child.

The Spinning Wheel was written in the late 1800s by John Frances Waller (1909-1894) and it's said that the melody is actually French, although it quickly became known as an Irish song.   Really, it was a parlour song that was part of the Anglo Irish tradition, nothing at all to do with traditional Irish music, but more to do with an idealised quaint way of life.  It quickly became a favourite for young girls to sing and instantly brings back memories of a gentler way of life.

Well known singers of the song
It was one of the songs recorded by Delia Murphy in her first recording session in 1936, one of the songs that made her a star and she in turn was the person who made the song popular.

Later, it became the first international hit for Mary O'Hara, although she didn't even want to record it.   Delia sang it at her husband's inauguration as the first Irish Ambassador to Australia and she said that if it's sung correctly you should feel the spinning wheel turning.  In our TV series - Songbirds, the First Ladies of Irish Song - it was the only song that we found that had been recorded by all the featured ladies - Ruby Murray, Margaret Barry, Bridie Gallagher, Delia Murphy and Mary O'Hara - and they all sang it in very different styles.

Mellow the moonlight to shine is beginning
Close by the window young Eileen is spinning
Bent o’er the fire her blind grandmother sitting
Is crooning and moaning and drowsily knitting

Eileen a chara I hear someone tapping
Tis the ivy dear mother against the glass flapping
Eily I surely hear someone sighing
Tis the sound mother dear of the autumn winds dying

Merrily cheerily noiselessly whirring
Swings the wheel spins the reel while the foot’s stirring
Sprightly and brightly and airily ringing
Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing

There’s a form at the casement the form of her true love
And he whispers with face bent “I’m waiting for you love
Get up on the stool through the lattice step lightly
And we’ll rove in the grove with the moon shining brightly”

The maid shakes her head on her lip lays her fingers
Steals up from the seat, longs to go and yet lingers
A frightened glance turned on her drowsy grandmother
Puts one foot on the stool spins the wheel with the other

Lazily, easily swings now the wheel round
Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel sound
Noiseless and light through the lattice above her
The maid creeps then leaps to the arms of her lover

Slower and slower and slower the wheel spins
Lower and lower and lower the reel rings
E’er the reel and the wheel stop their ringing and moving
Through the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving

******
The songwriter: 
John Francis Waller (1810 - 1894) was born in Limerick, educated at Trinity College, Dublin and was called to the Irish Bar in 1833. He became a contributor to and ultimately editor of the Dublin University Magazine, usually writing under the pseudonym of "Jonathan Freke Slingsby"

He published several volumes of poems and also wrote popular songs, including Cushla Ma Chree, The Spinning Wheel and Song of the Glass. He was responsible for the explanatory notes and a life of the author in a new edition of "Gulliver's Travels" written by Dean Jonathan Swift. 

Connected
If you're interested in spinning as an art I found this fascinating blog from a lady in Scotland.

Have you any memories of the song?  

If I Were A Blackbird - the start of a journey

I was standing in the middle of the floor at a singaround  during the  Holmfirth Folk Festival  back in the mid 90s - Tom and I had just met a bunch of lovely Yorkshire singers and I was blown away by the concept of the singaround which was something that I'd never encountered before.  I sang "If I Were A Blackbird" and afterwards Maggie Boyle told me that it was a Delia Murphy song.  I'd only vaguely heard of Delia before that, but I'm fascinated by the story of songs so I started researching her and storing away the bits of useless information that I found.

Fast forward a few years to the Tron Folk Club in Edinburgh and I met Alex Burns - sadly Alex is no longer with us - but that chance encounter changed my life in ways that I couldn't see at the time.  I sang "The Connemara Shore" and asked the audience if any of them had ever come across it before.  Alex thought he had it in his collection of gramophone records and several months later a cassette recording of a selection of his gramophone collection landed on my doormat.  And there, was my proper introduction to Delia and her songs.   

All of a sudden my lonely "If I Were A Blackbird" - or is it If I Was A Blackbird"? had a home and I could remember all the dozens of songs that my mother sang that inevitably were way too uncool for a teenager so I'd filed them in the "not worth considering if you want to be Linda Ronstadt" category...!!

The song became the first one I recorded when I decided to do an album of songs from my childhood in 2004 - it was also the first one that Delia recorded in her very first recording session in 1936.  She was the wife of the Irish minister in London and in diplomatic circles she was mixing with the arts and cultural leaders as well as politicians and diplomats.  John McCormack was a friend of hers as was Margaret Burke Sheridan and when the denizens of the recording industry starting looking outwards from London to find suitable projects to record someone suggested Delia - she was the life and soul of the embassy parties, playing piano and leading singsongs with her vast repertoire of Mayo songs.  So she went in for her very first session in 1936 and recorded 6 songs and became the first Irish person, male or female, to be recorded singing in her own accent, a fact that makes her recordings the beginnings of Irish folk music as we know it from these islands and an early native addition to the work being recorded in America by the McNulty Family and Flanagan Brothers among others.  

In our house we sang If I Was A Blackbird - probably our colloquialisation of the correct grammar - nowadays I find it difficult to be proper and sing "were" .. but here are the words as I sing them.  I also sing the chorus after each verse.   I've read somewhere that the song dates back to the 1700s and there are various theories as to who the Blackbird is or was - some say it was Bonny Prince Charlie as he was sometimes referred to in this way.  However most often it is considered a Dublin street song and started appearing in books from the 1920s onward.  There are interesting discussions about it at Mudcat

If I Were A Blackbird (traditional)

recorded by me on the Songbirds CD  (Glenshee Music GSR001) - available from CD Baby or my shop at www.filcampbell.com

If I was a blackbird, I’d whistle and sing

And I’d follow the ship that my true love sailed in

And on the top rigging I’d there build my nest

And I’d pillow my head on his lily white breast

I am a young maiden and my story is sad

For once I was courted by a brave sailor lad

He courted me truly by night and by day

But now he has left me and gone far away

He promised to take me to Donnybrook Fair

To buy me red ribbon to tie up my hair

And when he returns I will greet him with joy

And I’ll take to my bosom my dear sailor boy

His parents they chide and will not agree

That I and my sailor boy married should be

But when he returns from the ocean so wide

He’ll take me and make me his own loving bride

If I was a blackbird, I’d whistle and sing

And I’d follow the ship that my true love sailed in

And on the top rigging I’d there build my nest

And I’d pillow my head on his lily white breast