John Kelly and I put together this little Irish song, written by Phil Coulter and released by The Dubliners in 1973. The video, however is a surprise to John, who said.."I trust you"...after I told him it was a bit different. It was a sweet song to record and I'm sorry I had to chop it down a bit so it would fit the video, which, by the way, has over 100 colours - from a tablet app I am having fun with. John, as always does a beautiful job with accompaniment and ornamentation. Stay with me 'til the end, my daughter added a personal bonus feature.
Very beautiful Ginny and John ! Entertaining video Ginny!
Well done nice playing John and Ginny, and enchanting animation. What instruments were you playing? I’ll have to admit I was wondering what the end would be like.
Beautiful music and colouring. To me, the town with the frame houses coud be in Alsace. The lead mandolin sounds very sweet, while John dors a nice job with accompaniment and counter melodies.
As Ginny said above, I just said to her, "I trust you with the visuals" and she has certainly not disappointed on this one. I find it very interesting that the original song, written by Phil Coulter, tells of his growing up in Londonderry in Northern Ireland, and is a gritty song, yet the melody when played purely as an instrumental seems to suit Ginny's choice of scenery so well. Simon, Ginny played the melody on mandolin (probably her Northfield) and sent me her recording of this which I put into REAPER then added separate piano, guitar and mandolin tracks to Ginny's original and mixed the results to what you have here. This went back to her and she produced the final video. A big thanks too to her daughter Bethany who created the fluttering butterfly in the closing part. Thanks too to those of you who have commented here already.
Thank you for the nice comments. John did a great job as usual. But I couldn't get the animation into a real video - so my daughter has a more up-to-date movie maker than my ancient one, so she put it into HD mp4 + the butterfly..yes, I was playing the Northfield. Well, I was looking for something different to do for a video. I do have two 'live' - in person ones in the works. maybe.
Really nice, you two! A lovely, lovely melody, and your backing + counterpoints just right, John. I like the video a lot, but confess I'm looking forward to your in-person ones, Ginny!
Me too!
Beautiful melody playing, Ginny. Great complex accompaniment, John. The idea for the visuals is really great, Ginny. The coloring even follows the rhythm in some places!
As John said, the instrumental version makes this song a lot more bucolic than the usual lyrics suggest. The framed houses look very much like in the town of Hattingen near my home, another step away from the grisly legacy of Free Derry Wall. And the butterfly rounds it off, as if to say "all is forgiven" - if only it were so.
Lovely playing the both of ye.
Very nice, Ginny and John! I have always liked that melody, and it's on my list to record. I agree that there is a tension between the sweet melody and the gritty words, something that is common to a lot of Irish ballads. Another song with a similar quality (albeit not Irish) is "Dirty Old Town", written by Ewan MacColl about his home town of Salford. Martin
I agree, Martin. One of the songs I like is The Green Fields of France, which is way too slow and maudlin for me, or us..but my daughter listens to an up and coming Irish singer called Nattie Dred ( I hope I spelled that right). Mostly from Til Tok but can be found on YouTube at times. She sings The Green Fields of France and it is beautiful. .
There are so many songs in this category, Martin, and you mention Dirty Old Town. A great favourite in so many places. I remember we had a gig a few years ago here at home for a function where a friend was getting some big award to mark some career milestone he had achieved. He had been involved in security in Northern Ireland and several of his former colleagues were at the function, all also involved in the security business. We played for dancing and also performed a few songs and other items, and at one point we played a set of beautiful Irish tunes including the lovely Boolavogue. When we had finished the set one of the guests, a big fellow well over 6' tall and proportionately broad in the shoulder, came up to us and said, "Do you know you just played a Rebel Song there?" We told him we had only played a beautiful tune as part of an Irish set, not sung any words, and thankfully he accepted this, though not in the best grace. A potentially scary moment averted.
Well done Ginny and John! Innovative video idea too!
That's an interesting story about the Northern Irish connection, John. Shows that all the demons of contagious trauma are still around. If you have to sing, it seems Gaelic is still a good choice, or, as Colum Sands puts it:
Perhaps I should check for grizzly history before I suggest more songs for John. One Scottish family that plays mandolin and other instruments on YT call their category of certain songs, Rebel Songs. I think it's almost a genre on its own. I should check first instead of just saying, well that sounds pretty.
I just read the lyrics Ginny, they’re anti-military in general, and talk nostalgically about a past happy life in a town in peacetime.
No problem with your choices, Ginny. The tunes themselves are what we are using, and so many of them are beautiful in their own right. This afternoon I had a great outdoor socially-distanced session playing with some fiddlers in one of their gardens overlooking the River Clyde. Among the many tunes we played was the very one I mentioned above - Boolavogue. Some had not heard it before and the only comments were that it was such a lovely tune and could they get the notation. You mention a Scottish family playing Rebel Songs. I know the one you mean and their repertoire contains a lot of Jacobite songs dealing with the two Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745. The 1745 rebellion, with all the stories of Bonnie Prince Charlie and culminating in the awful slaughter of the clans at the Battle of Culloden near Inverness in 1746, has produced a huge catalogue of nostalgic songs and beautiful tunes. Back in March I posted a set of three Jacobite songs, all as instrumentals, covering the start, middle and end of the rebellion. https://youtu.be/SsWUZFz_sYw I am pretty sure that our Scottish Rebel Songs are treated more with a sort of misty-eyed nostalgia, of what might have been. We Scots love our wallow in the past, I think.
Both of our memories are failing us in age, John. We have recorded Boolavogue and never posted it. We did it as a two-some..and separated them. I'll look it up in my video files. The young lady who has become so popular ( and sings sad songs that don't sound so sad), is in fact Scottish, not Irish as i had said...her name is Nattie Dreddd - lovely to listen to but unlike John, I canna understand most of what she says (sings) - she has an amazing voice.
