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Posts: 3,069
Joined: 09-Oct-2003 Zodiac: Holly
Realm: Kentucky
Great thread I too should have read it earlier. I'd like to hear some of the later ones myself. Even the ones I'm not familiar with sound great in my head as I read them.
I will wait even if it takes a month. Especially that lately I found another song of Silly Wizard that I'd like to find tabs for. It's "The Blackbird". I'm sure a lot of people would like to see chords or tabs of those lovely songs here.
Realm: second star to the right, straight until morning
Barrett's Privateers
Oh, the year was 1778, HOW I WISH I WAS IN SHERBROOKE NOW! A letter of marque come from the king, To the scummiest vessel I'd ever seen,
CHORUS: God damn them all! I was told we'd cruise the seas for American gold We'd fire no guns-shed no tears Now I'm a broken man on a Halifax pier The last of Barrett's Privateers.
Oh, Elcid Barrett cried the town, HOW I WISH I WAS . . . For twenty brave men all fishermen who would make for him the Antelope's crew (chorus)
The Antelope sloop was a sickening sight, She'd a list to the port and and her sails in rags And the cook in scuppers with the staggers and the jags (chorus)
On the King's birthday we put to sea, We were 91 days to Montego Bay Pumping like madmen all the way (chorus)
On the 96th day we sailed again, When a bloody great Yankee hove in sight With our cracked four pounders we made to fight (chorus)
The Yankee lay low down with gold, She was broad and fat and loose in the stays But to catch her took the Antelope two whole days (chorus)
Then at length we stood two cables away, Our cracked four pounders made an awful din But with one fat ball the Yank stove us in (chorus)
The Antelope shook and pitched on her side, Barrett was smashed like a bowl of eggs And the Maintruck carried off both me legs (chorus)
So here I lay in my 23rd year, It's been 6 years since we sailed away And I just made Halifax yesterday (chorus)
Music is holy, art is sacred, and creativity is power
Everyday is EARTH DAY to a farmer
"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." Oscar Wilde
Some men are drawn to oceans, they cannot breathe unless the air is scented with a salty mist. Others are drawn to land that is flat, and the air is sullen and is leaden as August. My people were drawn to mountains- Earl Hamner Jr.
I like this one, which I first heard by the McKrells:
Irish Soldier Laddie
Author Unknown
'Twas a morning in July, I was walking to Tipperary When I heard a battle cry From the mountains over head As I looked up in the sky I saw an Irish soldier laddie He looked at me right fearlessly and said:
Will ye stand in the van like a true Irish man, And go and fight the forces of the crown? Will ye march with O'Neill to an Irish battle field? For tonight we go to free old Wexford town!
Said I to that soldier boy "Won't you take me to your captain T'would be my pride and joy For to march with you today. My young brother fell in Cork And my son at Innes Carthay!" Unto the noble captain I did say:
Will ye stand in the van like a true Irish man, And go and fight the forces of the crown? Will ye march with O'Neill to an Irish battle field? For tonight we go to free old Wexford town!
As we marched back from the field In the shadow of the evening With our banners flying low To the memory of our dead We returned unto our homes But without my soldier laddie
Yet I never will forget those words he said:
Will ye stand in the van like a true Irish man, And go and fight the forces of the crown? Will ye march with O'Neill to an Irish battle field? For tonight we go to free old Wexford town!
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Randal Smith alias Smitty the Kid Wielder of the Six-String Claymore!
"We have enough Youth, how about a Fountain of Smart?" "When the going gets tough, the smart go fishing!"
Thanks Jason for the link. I'm exploring the back ground information...very interesting!
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Roisin-Teagan
"There, in that hand, on that shoulder under that chin---all of its lightness delicately balanced and its strings skillfully bowed---it becomes a voice."---Rich Mullins
"At 18, if you have oversized aspirations, the whole world sees you as a dreamer. At 40, you get the reputation for being a visionary." ---Rich Mullins
"God gives the gifts where He finds the vessel empty enough to receive them."---C.S. Lewis
I've only heard this song once live, and don't know who did it. Sounded like Sinead O'Connor, but I can't be sure. If someone knows please tell. By the way, Mary Black does a fairly good rendition as well. And apparently this was on the soundtrack of Gangs of New York.
Paddy's Lamentation Unknown
Well it's by the hush, me boys, and sure that's to hold your noise And listen to poor Paddy's sad narration I was by hunger pressed, and in poverty distressed So I took a thought I'd leave the Irish nation
Chorus: Repeat between verses. Here's to you boys, now take my advice To America I'll have ye's not be going There is nothing here but war, where the murderin' cannons roar And I wish I was at home in dear old Dublin
Well I sold me ass and cow, my little pigs and sow My little plot of land I soon did part with And me sweetheart Bid McGee, I'm afraid I'll never see For I left her there that morning broken-hearted
Well meself and a hundred more, to America sailed o'er Our fortunes to be made [sic] we were thinkin' When we got to Yankee land, they shoved a gun into our hands Saying "Paddy, you must go and fight for Lincoln"
General Meagher to us he said, if you get shot or lose your head Every murdered soul of youse will get a pension Well meself I lost me leg, they gave me a wooden peg, And by God this is the truth to you I mention
Well I think meself in luck, if I get fed on Indian buck And old Ireland is the country I delight in With the devil, I do say, it's curse Americay For I think I've had enough of your hard fightin'
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The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859
Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge. ~Mark Twain
The Green Fields of France, also known as No Man's Land. The song was written by Eric Bogle.
After a visit to the war cemeteries in France in the early seventies Bogle turned a traditional Scottish lamento into a dramatic fictious conversation with Private William McBride. Maybe Bogle was inspired by an headstone he had seen, but problably the man and the name are equally fictious.
Piet Chielens, coordinator of the In Flanders Fields War Museum in Ypres, Belgium, and organizer of yearly peace concerts in Flanders, once checked all 1,700,000 names that are registered with the Commanwealth War Commission. He found no less than ten Privates William McBride.
Three of these William McBride's fell in 1916, two were members of the Northern Irish Regiment, the Royal Inniskilling Fusilliers, and died more or less in the same spot during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. One was 21, the other 19 years old. "The law of the greatest numbers does beat even the most poetical license", Chielens remarks.
The 19 years old Pte William McBride is buried in Authuille British Cemetery, just south of Beaumont-Hamel, where the Inniskilling Fussilliers were deployed as part of the 29th Division.
Click here to download Eric Bogle's original version of this song (MP3 Pro file, 2,9 Mb). And here is a live recording of this song sung a capella by June Tabor (MP3 Pro file, 2,3 Mb).
These are the words:
The Green Fields of France Well how do you do, Private William McBride Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side? A rest for awhile in the warm summer sun, I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done. And I see by your gravestone that you were only 19 when you joined the glorious fallen in 1916. And I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean Or, William McBride, was it slow and obscene?
CHORUS: Did they beat the drum slowly? did they sound the pipes lowly? Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down? Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus? Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind? In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined And though you died back in 1916 To that faithful heart are you always 19. Or are you just a stranger without even a name Forever enclosed behind some glass-pane In an old photograph torn and tattered and stained And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?
Well the sun it shines down on these green fields of France, The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance. The trenches are vanished now under the plough No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now. But here in this graveyard it is still No Man's Land And the countless white crosses in mute witness stand. To man's blind indifference to his fellow man And a whole generation that was butchered and downed.
And I can't help but wonder now Willie McBride Do all those who lie here know why they died? Did you really believe them when they told you the cause? Did you really believe them that this war would end war? But the suffering, the sorrow, some the glory, the shame - The killing and dying - it was all done in vain. For Willie McBride, it's all happened again And again, and again, and again, and again.
Did they beat the drum slowly? did they sound the pipe lowly? Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down? Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus? Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?
The green fields of France is a great song. John McDermott has an excellent rendition in his "The Danny Boy Collection". His CD has a few good songs of war
OK... he's not Irish, I don't think.. but Garth Brooks sings a song called Ireland on his Fresh Horses CD that is very moving. Here are the lyrics. I don't know the story behind it, but Garth Brooks wanted to sort of say thank you to Ireland for his reception there.
"Ireland"
They say mother earth is breathing With each wave that finds the shore Her soul rises in the evening For to open twilights door Her eyes are the stars in heaven Watching o'er us all the while And her heart it is in Ireland Deep within the Emerald Isle
We are forty against hundreds In someone else's bloody war We know not why were fighting Or what we're dying for They will storm us in the morning When the sunlight turns to sky Death is waiting for its dance now Fate has sentenced us to die
Ireland I am coming home I can see your rolling fields of green And fences made of stone I am reaching out won't you take my hand I'm coming home Ireland
Oh the captain he lay bleeding I can hear him calling me These men are yours now for the leading Show them to their destiny As I look up all around me I see the ragged tired and torn I tell them to make ready 'Cause we're not waiting for the morn
Ireland I am coming home I can see your rolling fields of green And fences made of stone I am reaching out won't you take my hand I'm coming home Ireland
Now the fog is deep and heavy As we forge the dark and fear We can hear their horses breathing As in silence we draw near There are no words to be spoken Just a look to say good-bye I draw a breath and night is broken As I scream our battle cry
Ireland I am coming home I can see your rolling fields of green And fences made of stone I am reaching out won't you take my hand I'm coming home Ireland Yes I am home Ireland
We were forty against hundreds
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So, I have an new site that is pretty neat, Check out Dannah's Home Page
Also, for original storys or thoughts from me, check out my blog: Dannah's Blog
Group: Celtic Nation
Posts: 166
Joined: 13-Aug-2004 Zodiac: Oak
Realm: northern Canada - somewhere between the treeline and civilisation
Here's are great old war song that I believe originated in Ireland. An additional verse was added to it during the American Civil War. It is also the song that was sung on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as someone had asked about before.
The Minstrel Boy
Thomas Moore, 1779-1852
The minstrel boy to the war is gone, In the ranks of death you'll find him; His father's sword he hath girded on, And his wild harp slung behind him;
"Land of Song!" cried the warrior bard, "Tho' all the world betrays thee, One sword, at least, thy right shall guard, One faithful harp shall praise thee!"
The Minstrel fell! But the foeman's steel Could not bring that proud soul under; The harp he lov'd ne'er spoke again, For he tore its chords asunder; And said "No chains shall sully thee, Thou soul of love and brav'ry! Thy songs were made for the pure and free They shall never sound in slavery!
US Civil War verse
The minstrel boy will return, we pray, When we hear the news we all will cheer it. The minstrel boy will return one day, Torn perhaps in body, not in spirit. Then may he play on his harp in peace, In a world such as Heaven has intended, For all the bitterness of man must cease, And every battle must be ended
Enjoy! Rory MacA
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