# Music by Genre > Celtic, U.K., Nordic, Quebecois, European Folk >  The South Wind - O'Carolan?

## Scott Tichenor

I've been seeing this piece of music credited to Turlough O'Carolan called _The South Wind_. It's a beautiful piece, but where does it appear in the O'Sullivan book which I've always understood to be the definitive resource? Anyone know? New discovery? Can't believe I've missed this one. Been listened and playing this stuff off and on for geez, 30 years. Just finished teaching an 8-week class on this music earlier this evening. Never heard of this one. Found this simplified version on the web.

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## sgarrity

I've heard this tune for years, especially at the Irish influenced jams back in VA.  But I had not heard of it being credited to O'Carolan.  It is a beautiful melody!

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## Pete Braccio

The books that I have just list that piece as Traditional.

Pete

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## allenhopkins

There are words to it, Scottish words; Archie Fisher sings it on _The Man With the Rhyme._  My band Love & Knishes does it with one sung verse, the rest instrumental.

Here's a YouTube version with the lyrics (in DADGAD tuning, I think):



There's another neat song that uses the tune, _All the Tunes In the World,_ by the Scottish songwriter Ewan McVicar.  I sing it, but not in G; have to move it to C.  Here are the lyrics:

Lay down the borrowed guitar 
Lay down the fiddle and bow 
You'd like one more drink at the bar 
But the manager says you must go

_And all the tunes in the world 
Are dancing around in your head 
But the clock on the gantry says play-time is o'er
You'll just have to sing them instead_

Lay down the jig and the reel
Lay down the planxty and slide 
Everyone knows how you feel
But there's no time to take one more ride

The barmaid has put on her coat 
And the barman has emptied the slops
And the manager's friends are afraid 
The music will bring in the cops

Everyone here feels the same
Oh yes you deserve one more tune 
but you know the rules of the game,
It's time to go howl at the moon

McVicar says he wrote it for a piper friend who, at closing time in the pub, would insist on playing tune after tune until the management had to eject him.  They're pretty serious about closing times in England and Scotland.  I got the song from Janet Russell, a great Scottish feminist singer-songwriter.

Oh, and concur with Pete B: every source I've seen for it says "Trad."

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## Tosh Marshall

We play this in our group as a set with Man In The Moon and I have to admit I thought it was Scottish.  Our source was the Merlin Session Tunebook One http://www.merlin-music.com/tunebooks.htm

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## mculliton123

I found this on the TheSessions web site:

"South Wind was written in the 1700s by "Freckled Donal Macnamara" in homesickness for his homeland in County Mayo, as described in Donal O'Sullivan's wonderful book, "Songs of the Irish." 



mc

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## Scott Tichenor

OK, this sort of confirms my thinking so far that this tune has been passed around and mistakenly was taken as an O'Carolan piece here and there and then keeps getting passed on as such. There are several in O'Neill's I recall that are credited to him which is pretty much disputed by O'Carolan die-hards. It's all just good music to me. Just thought I'd somehow missed something after looking at that book for a long, long time.

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## Martin Jonas

According to the Fiddler's Companion (here), the tune is indeed listed by both O'Neill and O'Sullivan, but neither attribute it to Carolan.  They spell it "Southwind" with alternative names being "An Ghaoth Aneas", "The Southern Breeze" and "The Wind from the South".  It's on the third Chieftains album under its Gaelic title.

Martin

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## JeffD

I have always thought it a Scottish tune

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## Rob Gerety

Lovely tune whatever its source.  I wonder, in Ireland does a south wind mean what it means to canoe trippers here in New England?  Rain on the way, and it will blow all night.

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## Eddie Sheehy

A South Wind in Ireland is a warm gentle breeze...

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## hank

A little off topic & continent but the same subject only different is my new adopted home of Arkansas.  "At the time of the early French exploration, a tribe of Indians, the Quapaws, lived west of the Mississippi and north of the Arkansas River. The Quapaws, or OO-GAQ-PA, were also known as the downstream people, or UGAKHOPAG. The Algonkian-speaking Indians of the Ohio Valley called them the Arkansas, or "south wind."

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## Pete Hicks

That's funny that you should run into this tune now.  I just came across it myself.  I played it at a dance the other night and got the music from a site called www.fiddlefork.com.  There are 2 versions up there one in G and one in C I think.  They also have the chords.

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## Paul Kotapish

"South Wind" has been a staple of the contradance waltz repertoire for decades--on the left coast, anyway. It's a popular piece with Irish and Scottish harp players, and that may be where the association with O'Carolan began.

According to a comment on "The Session" website:

"South Wind was written in the 1700s by "Freckled Donal Macnamara" in homesickness for his homeland in County Mayo, as described in Donal O'Sullivan's wonderful book, "Songs of the Irish."

I'm inclined to believe that, although I have no other evidence to support it. It doesn't sound much like an O'Carolan tune to me--lovely though it is. And I agree, it works great on the mandolin.

The tune--and the various different sets of lyrics that go with it--has a number of variations on its moniker:

All The Tunes In The World 
An Gaoth Andheas
An Gaoth Aneas
An Gaoth Anneas
An Ghaoth Andheas
An Ghaoth Aneas
An Ghaoth Aniar Aneas
Gaiot Ua N-Deas
South Wind
The Southern Breeze
Southwind
The Southwind
The Wind From The South

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## Randi Gormley

Not that it matters at this late date, but our band always plays it second tune to Fanny Power (Fanny Power/South Wind), so we've always just assumed the two were O'Carolans both. Now we know.

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## s1m0n

I've also seen it attributed to Rory Dall O'Cathain, who wrote Give Me Your Hand.

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## s1m0n

> There are words to it, Scottish words; Archie Fisher sings it on _The Man With the Rhyme._


Archie's scottish, but his words discussed counties Connaught and Mayo, which are just as Irish as they ever were. I don't speak Irish, but as far as I know his lyric is a straight-up translation of _An Gaoth Aneas_.

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## Tosh Marshall

I happened to catch John Renbourn and Robin Williamson at the Half Moon in Putney and they did The South Wind with Barney Pilgrim on Guitar and Harp.  Robin Williamson also played some fine mandolin.  I couldn't find a clip of them together on YouTube but found this one of John Renbourn performing it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEy-t...ext=1&index=11

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## Tosh Marshall

Sorry, wrong link, try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEy-tPyy-vw

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## hank

Both links worked for me?  Very nice. Any ideas on John's tuning DADGAD, DADDAD?

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## Tosh Marshall

I would have thought it was DADGAD but funny enough I have Renbourn's book 'Fingerstyle Guitar' (not that I play guitar much!) and it has the tuning DADGBD.

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## JeffD

> "South Wind" has been a staple of the contradance waltz repertoire for decades--on the left coast, anyway.


Very popular here in NY as well.

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