songs of loss

[Jack]

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...

[Martin Milner]

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.

[CHasR]

flowers of the forest

[Agio]

o.k., Jack..here you go, the sine qua non of loss:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGKAft_L ... re=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

[hyldemoer]

o.k., Jack..here you go, the sine qua non of loss:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGKAft_L ... re=related

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. "

[Jack]

o.k., Jack..here you go, the sine qua non of loss:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGKAft_L ... re=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

I don't want anything religious. Thanks, though.

[Nanohedron]

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.

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.

[emmline]

Barbara Allen and Molly Malone are both old Irish or English ballads that involve dying people.

[Agio]

I don't want anything religious. Thanks, though.

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.

[HDSarah]

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.

[s1m0n]

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 baby

Once our valleys were ringing
With songs of our children singing
But now sheep bleat till the evening
And shielings lie empty and broken

We 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.

[Walden]

Where Have All the Flowers Gone, by Pete Seeger.

[jsluder]

"Kilkelly, Ireland" (written by Peter Jones and performed by lots o' folks)

[djm]

Find the cost of freedom
Buried in the ground.
Mother Earth will swallow you,
Lay your body down.

- Steven Stills

[BigDavy]

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 baby

Once our valleys were ringing
With songs of our children singing
But now sheep bleat till the evening
And shielings lie empty and broken

We 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.

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
MacDonald

They 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