The Wind That Shakes The Barley

[Jack]

How do you feel about this song?

Here is a Wikipedia page on the song: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wind_T ... ley_(song)

Here are the lyrics:I sat within the valley green, I sat me with my true love
My sad heart strove the two between, the old love and the new love
The old for her, the new that made me think on Ireland dearly
While soft the wind blew down the glen and shook the golden barley


'Twas hard the woeful words to frame to break the ties that bound us
But harder still to bear the shame of foreign chains around us
And so I said, "The mountain glen I'll seek at morning early
And join the bold united men," while soft winds shake the barley


While sad I kissed away her tears, my fond arms round her flinging
A yeoman's shot burst on our ears from out the wildwood ringing
A bullet pierced my true love's side in life's young spring so early
And on my breast in blood she died while soft winds shook the barley


I bore her to some mountain stream, and many's the summer blossom
I placed with branches soft and green about her gore-stained bosom
I wept and kissed her clay-cold corpse then rushed o'er vale and valley
My vengeance on the foe to wreak while soft wind shook the barley


But blood for blood without remorse I've taken at Oulart Hollow
And laid my true love's clay cold corpse where I full soon may follow
As round her grave I wander drear, noon, night and morning early
With breaking heart when e'er I hear the wind that shakes the barley.

And here is a version by Dead Can Dance, which has a really interesting singer (I think her voice is really masculine, but beautiful). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd-8Jos6VrA

[hyldemoer]

I've been playing the tune for years on the fiddle. I picked it up from another fiddler. I had no idea it was a song too.

I'm not sure if I'm prepared to decide if I like or dislike a melody more or less just because of lyrics that go along with it.

Perhaps I say that because my hearing has degenerated a bit and I've lost quite a few consonants. Words just aren't an emphasis of what I enjoy of music.

[Jack]

I've been playing the tune for years on the fiddle. I picked it up from another fiddler. I had no idea it was a song too.

I'm not sure if I'm prepared to decide if I like or dislike a melody more or less just because of lyrics that go along with it.

Perhaps I say that because my hearing has degenerated a bit and I've lost quite a few consonants. Words just aren't an emphasis of what I enjoy of music.

Did you listen to this woman's voice?

Just by reading the lyrics, I don't like them much either, but her singing it makes it really special. I love her voice.

[dfernandez77]

I can't imagine someone disliking this song. Lovely melody. Wonderful lyrics (considering the subject).

Except for the register, there's nothing masculine about the voice - in my opinion.

[Innocent Bystander]

Love the tune, like the song. Not crazy about that rendition, but that's just me. I'm real picky.

[Nanohedron]

Love the tune, like the song. Not crazy about that rendition, but that's just me. I'm real picky.

Seems that the singer is a bit unused to singing with ornamentation, I thought, what with it being a traditional Irish song and she seeming to attempt to bring that sort of feel to it.

The tune's great, and I like the lyrics in that they combine a love theme with an historical frame of reference, both tragic. The love tragedy also provides an ambiguity: a symbolic reference to Ireland herself might be found in it. Not uncommon in Irish song.

[hyldemoer]

I've been playing the tune for years on the fiddle. I picked it up from another fiddler. I had no idea it was a song too.

I'm not sure if I'm prepared to decide if I like or dislike a melody more or less just because of lyrics that go along with it.

Perhaps I say that because my hearing has degenerated a bit and I've lost quite a few consonants. Words just aren't an emphasis of what I enjoy of music.

Did you listen to this woman's voice?

What? An alto with enough vibrato that she sounds like she's singing into a fan?
Oh, its pleasant in a modern sort of way, I suppose. If she were a fiddle I'd suggest she cut back on the vibrato though, only use it for occasional ornamentation. That's a personal taste based on my foundations in Early Music.

Just by reading the lyrics, I don't like them much either, but her singing it makes it really special. I love her voice.

Since I learned the tune without lyrics, its the melody in my head that I recall to play it.
Having the lyrics pointed out to me at this stage didn't change what's in my recall of the tune.

The singer's presentation of the lyrics? Since I can't hear most of the consonants, the singer might be singing in Polish for all I know.

[crookedtune]

I'm not sure a clip on YouTube does justice to any stage performance, really. I don't doubt it would be a very moving audience experience. I, too, never knew it had lyrics. I love the tune.

[Jack]

Except for the register, there's nothing masculine about the voice - in my opinion.

I don't know what it is. It's not the register, though -- Cher has a low voice and I don't think she sounds masculine. But when I first heard this song, I thought the singer was a man.

[Charlene]

I first heard it under the title "The Wind That Shakes the Corn."

I'm not even going to try to pull up the clip mentioned here - every time I try to watch a video online it takes 20-30 minutes to open a 2 or 3 minute file, so it's not worth the bother.

[djm]

I wouldn't give up on a tune just because of the lyrics of one song. Remember that the Irish re-used their song tunes regularly, so that if you don't like this particular song, there may be twenty others set to the same tune, and probably you will like one of them instead.

djm

[chas]

I've always liked the song, lyrics and all. I'm not crazy about this rendition, never been crazy about Dead Can Dance.

[pipersgrip]

i love this song.

[BigDavy]

A few other versions if you don't like the one Cran posted.

A nice one - sound only - Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laE0Q5po5tc

One to put you off the song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSoTs3KDSm0

Guaranteed to put you off the song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfTGiy1yLjs

Unaccompanied version - sort of sean nos style. She sounds more masculine than the Dead Can't Dance singer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UsTwVjx5KM

David

[s1m0n]

The Tommy Makem version is lovely.

Somewhere I have a 'field' recording of his mother, Sarah Makem, singing.

She'd sing while she worked, and when (someone--prolly Seamus Ennis or Peter Kennedy) was recording her, he found he had to follow her around the kitchen with the microphone.

I find her singing astonishing. She sings with a SLOOOOW intensity that I can't figure out.

The recording is an older lady singing a lovesong very at a very deliberate pace, yet I find myself on edge; waiting for the explosion that never happens. I have no idea how she does that, and I wish I did.

~~

I do notice that 'contemporary' or 'revival' recordings of Irish traditional songs (ie Sean nos, whether in english or Irish), as a rule, are all much faster than the source recordings that inspire them.

My guess is that something changed in our society--we now no longer have the patience for that slower pace.