William Butler Yeats

gonzo914 · Post by **gonzo914** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 5:00 pm

In this a Gregorian Chant and Bluegrass forum, or a Gregorian Chant or Bluegrass forum?

If the latter, does anyone know where I might find some bluegrass with lyrics by William Butler Yeats?

s1m0n · Post by **s1m0n** » Wed Oct 12, 2005 5:02 pm

If you do, don't tell his family. They'll sue.

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Thu Oct 13, 2005 12:40 am

He was fond of a tune or two...

WHEN I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Moharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.

When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;

For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance:

And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With ‘Here is the fiddler of Dooney!’
And dance like a wave of the sea.

W.B.Yeats

Slan,
D.

carrie · Post by **carrie** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 7:27 pm

I love The Fiddler of Dooney, dubh.

Gonzo, Yeats and bluegrass are just so meant for each other. Here's Slouching Toward Bethlehem, its subtleties brilliantly illuminated through the ringing banjo.

From the CD by the Alferd Packer Memorial String Band (more clips here). The sensitive liner notes for Slouching Toward Bethlehem: One day while reading a dark, chaotic, and apocalyptic poem by William Butler Yeats, Matt suddenly thought, "Man, this is a bluegrass song!"

Carol

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Thu Oct 20, 2005 7:53 pm

I sit dumbfounded and flabbergasted in the extreme.

A contender for the Link of the Year award.

The dark, chaotic and apocalyptic poem mentioned in the liner notes is "The Second Coming", which is ,of course, the lyric to Slouching towards Bethlehem.

My old and well worn copy of Yeats falls open automatically on "Prayer for my Daughter", possibly Yeats finest hour, and The Second Coming is the preceding poem so I get to read it a lot.

I wonder what the Fiddler of Dooney would make of it all?

Thanks again for the link

Slan,
D.

gonzo914 · Post by **gonzo914** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 5:57 am

Thanks, Carol. It just goes to show that Dorothy was right -- If you're looking for your heart's desire, you should look no further than your own back yard.

Fans of Tom Lehrer are directed to "Sally in the Garden With the Hog-Eyed Man/Worried in the Straw" in the "more clips here" link.

Now a challenge for all -- find a bluegrass tune for the Fiddle of D. I tried stuffing it into Angeline the Baker, it was not a good fit. I am somewhat limited because I only know 2 buegrass tunes.

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 8:04 am

I've just had arun through on guitar using the tune for "Man of constant sorrow" and it seems to work O.K.

The Bob Dylan version of the tune fits quite well as does the version used in Oh Brother ,where art thou.
While playing it through in the Oh Brother tune I got this picture in my mind of Old W.B. leading the vocal and his backing vocalists - Flann O'Brian,Jimmy Joyce ,Brendan Behan and Paddy Kavanagh - belting out the last line of every verse as a refrain.

Now that would have been a party....

Slan,
D.

Roger O'Keeffe · Post by **Roger O'Keeffe** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 5:46 pm

Can we get one thing straight? The appropriate genitive is "Yeats's".

OK, I was always more of a grammarian than a truly literary soul.

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Fri Nov 04, 2005 7:55 pm

Roger O'Keeffe wrote:Can we get one thing straight? The appropriate genitive is "Yeats's".

OK, I was always more of a grammarian than a truly literary soul.

Good job Joyce wasn't.

Slan,
D.

SteveK · Post by **SteveK** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 5:53 am

gonzo914 wrote:
Now a challenge for all -- find a bluegrass tune for the Fiddle of D. I tried stuffing it into Angeline the Baker, it was not a good fit. I am somewhat limited because I only know 2 buegrass tunes.

If you modify the first part of The Rose Tree a bit, I think it will fit. Same for Big Scioty. Neither are bluegrass tunes and neither is Angeline the Baker. It was originally Angelina Baker by Stephen Foster. The version now played is sort of put together. The Rose Tree is an English Tune out of which came Turkey in the Straw. Old time players do play The Rose Tree though. Big Scioty is an old time tune. I'd guess that there are many old time tunes that you could use to put those words to. In fact now that I try it, the version of Angeline that I know would fit quite well. Try it again. "When I" would pickup notes. "Play" would fall on A, "my" on B, fiddle in would be D, D, A and so on. The key is D.

SteveK · Post by **SteveK** » Sat Nov 05, 2005 5:58 am

I forgot to mention it but Cittern player Joseph Sobol along with some vocalists has a CD of Yeats's poems.In the Deep Heart's Core vol 1. Definitely not bluegrassy. Joseph also has a great CD of mainly Irish music called Citternalia.

http://www.kiltartanroad.com/recordings.htm

gonzo914 · Post by **gonzo914** » Tue Nov 08, 2005 7:17 am

SteveK wrote:In fact now that I try it, the version of Angeline that I know would fit quite well. Try it again. "When I" would pickup notes. "Play" would fall on A, "my" on B, fiddle in would be D, D, A and so on. The key is D.

This version? http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/old-t ... 000354.HTM

I did go back to it, and if you fiddle with things a bit and make the fourth verse a chorus, it by golly does work. Sing the chorus to the B part of the tune and use the A part for everything else.

WHEN I play my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin’s a priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Moharabuiee.

I passed my brother and cousin.
They read their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at Sligo fair.

<chorus -- play B part of tune>
For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance.

When we reach the end of time,
Where Peter sits in state,
He’ll smile on three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate.

And when the folk there spy me,
They’ll all come up to me,
With ‘Here's the fiddler of Dooney!’
And they’ll dance like a wave of the sea.

<chorus>
For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance.

As for the origin of Angeline the Baker, traditional music historians long believed that Stephen Foster based his song Angelina Baker on an old mountain tune called "Alferd Et the Baker." More recent forensic musicologists using modern laboratory techniques have pointed out, however, that the old-time mountains in the latter were the Rocky mountains, not the Appalachians, and that whereas Alferd probably did indeed "et" the baker, he did so 10 years after Foster's death.