Pipes and Pop Music

Steve Bliven · Post by **Steve Bliven** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 1:44 pm

Greetings -

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?

Best wishes.

Steve

MTGuru · Post by **MTGuru** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 1:49 pm

Steve Bliven wrote:For extra credit, can you come up with any pop songs that use a hurdy-gurdy?

Loreena McKennitt's Mummer's Dance is probably too obvious.

Wikipedia says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recordings ... urdy_gurdy

AaronMalcomb · Post by **AaronMalcomb** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 2:08 pm

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.

CHasR · Post by **CHasR** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 3:30 pm

ah, who listens to that pop schlock anyway

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")

MTGuru · Post by **MTGuru** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 3:49 pm

AaronMalcomb wrote:Eva Cassidy's cover was probably better.

Yes. Eva Cassidy's everything was better ...

CHasR wrote:and the opening music from 'Xena-warrior princess'

Armenian duduk, I think. It's ... historical!

Naturally, Donovan's Hurdy Gurdy Man uses everything but hurdy gurdy.

MichaelLoos · Post by **MichaelLoos** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:10 am

MTGuru wrote:
CHasR wrote:and the opening music from 'Xena-warrior princess'
Armenian duduk, I think. It's ... historical!

Bulgarian kaba gaida.

MTGuru · Post by **MTGuru** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:27 am

MichaelLoos wrote:Bulgarian kaba gaida.

Aha ... so it is. I trust cadancer's identification: viewtopic.php?p=661735#p661735

Thanks!

projektio28 · Post by **projektio28** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 2:13 am

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.

Steve Bliven · Post by **Steve Bliven** » Fri Dec 05, 2008 7:36 am

Thanks to all for your thoughts and memories. Got more than enough to help the Museum with their class.

Best wishes.

Steve

P.S. Me, I like anything Eva Cassidy ever recorded...

James J · Post by **James J** » Sun Dec 07, 2008 10:00 pm

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.

kintailpipes · Post by **kintailpipes** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 6:12 am

Hi Steve,
I remember a Song called Sky pilot from the Viet Nam Era.
Tom

James J · Post by **James J** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 3:04 am

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.

AaronMalcomb · Post by **AaronMalcomb** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 11:20 am

The Pogues cover of 'Dirty Old Town' had some uilleann pipes. That song got a little mainstream play, maybe not so much in the States.

There's a Tom Waits song with GHB in the background, can't remember the track name though. It's pretty subtle.

Belle and Sebastian used a little GHB on a track from their 'Boy With The Arab Strap' CD too.

The Sporting Pitchfork · Wed Dec 17, 2008 5:04 pm

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.

vonHorna · Post by **vonHorna** » Thu May 28, 2009 2:05 pm

I remember a very bad techno-dancefloor-Song from the 90's:

"Acid folk" by perplexer. it had been quite popular in Germany (and allover Europe I think) but it was such a piece of...

And the british guys from Right said Fred had highland pipes in their Song "you're my mate"

and finally ther were highland pipes in one of the hymns for the football (soccer) World championships 1998 in France called "carnival de Paris"

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