What are some tunes that have a fascinating background? I heard Hag At The Churn was played to ward off witches and I thought that was very interesting and would like to know some more tunes and their stories and history.
There’s Junior Crehan’s “The Luachrachán” - he tells the story himself on The Last House in Ballymakea
http://tunearch.org/wiki/Annotation:Luaithreadan%27s_Jig
and this is a nice one too
https://thesession.org/tunes/3813
some tunes I like better before I find out what they’re about - like this one:
https://thesession.org/tunes/382
That first one is very fascinating, I think I read about that one awhile ago, I’m glad I found it again.
The Snowy Path by Altan has a really itneresting background-- it was written by their guitarist for the whistle player who was battling with a bad case of MS. He eventually died form it, I believe.
The Little Stack of Wheat also has an interesting background-- I was told that people during that time would make stacks of wheat and leave them there to collect later in the day.
“The Lark In The Morning” has a fun story. Would someone please recite it for us? I don’t know it well enough to tell it.
“The Morning Thrush” has a nice little background story too. Again, I don’t know it well enough to tell it, if someone else could, please do 🙂
I hadn’t heard the Lark in the Morning story - that’s a good one (the second comment here: https://thesession.org/tunes/62)
And the morning thrush is a fantastic tune! The comments say Seamus Ennis was inspired by a thrush singing in the garden - is that the story you heard Jerone? If you scroll down toward the end, someone was kind enough to post some video of singing thrushes…
https://thesession.org/tunes/967
Here’s another version of that lark story (also from the comments - down near the lark videos)
I heard this story years ago, but also not as two fiddlers…but pipers; one of those pipers was the famous 18th-century Irish piper Jackson, who played in contest through the night against another piper. As sunrise approached, Jackson ran out of tunes and dejectedly walked outside and sat on a bench against the pub wall, where he heard the morning trill of the lark, upon which he ran back inside and played this tune to win the contest…
@airport - agreed - yours is the usual story. In any case, it’s clearly a piper’s tune.
I’ve heard it said that the inspiration forNancy Clough’s march was the sound of a sqeaking gate hinge:
https://thesession.org/tunes/3471
What about the two tunes played by the Pied Piper of Hamelin?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pied_Piper_of_Hamelin
I this case though, we have the story - but we don’t know the tunes … 🙁
There’s a story associated with the tune: “Astley’s Ride”:
https://thesession.org/tunes/7288
See Pete Cooper’s web article for details:
http://www.petecooper.com/eftnotes.htm#9
I love the story behind the jig “The Banshee’s Wail Over The Mangle Pit.” It’s so ironically anticlimactic.
Apparently, Martin Hayes couldn’t find the name for it, so he rang his mate Paddy O’Brien who was usually a fount of this sort of knowledge. Paddy didn’t know the name this time, though. So Martin asked if he wanted to make one up, and Paddy offered the wonderful title. The tune carries the rather innocuous name “Young Tom Ennis” in O’Neill’s Dance Music of Ireland, named after the youngest member of the Chicago Irish Musicians Club at the turn of the last century. The tune came from Tom’s father the Chicago garda John Ennis of Kildare, who either composed it or learned it from an earlier unknown source.
I don’t know if it’s true (and it doesn’t really matter to me if it is or not, it’s STILL a good story) but I’ve heard that Port na bPucai was inspired by the calls of humpback whales reverberating up through the wooden hulls of fishing boats.
Have often wondered whence came the title for Jackson’ Morning Brush.
I’d assumed the tune came to him whilst having a shave in the morning but apparently not:
https://thesession.org/tunes/2699
I heard somewhere that Pay the Reckoning was also a tune by Squire Jackson. He got into trouble with a gang of brigands, so rather than get mugged he composed a tune instead which placated them, hence that was his way to Pay the Reckoning. The more I think of it, this apocryphal tale seems of dubious veracity, but like fidkid’s, I like the story anyway.
I always knew it as Jackson’s Morning *Breeze*, and assumed it had something to do with farting after waking up in the morning…
Oops, I think that’s a different tune entirely. So maybe I’m right about the farting.
The Haunted House has an interesting story behind it:
"Young lads, Vincent & Peter were out on the bicycle one late night, returning from playing out, when they heard music. Naturally they came to a stop. They were attracted to the sound and searched for it, coming to a large house all lit up and folks could be seen dancing through the windows, all gussied up and in their finery. The two of them paused for awhile to listen and watch the goings on, but they were tired and eventually made their way home. The next day, curious, and not remembering such a place on the way before, a road well travelled by them, they returned. All they could find were ruins, a grand house long gone to ruin.
This tune came on them, so really, there’s almost no claim to it except by those ghosts… "
https://thesession.org/tunes/1098
A few of Vincent Broderick’s tunes have stories behind them. I think there’s a story behind the Whistler at the Wake that may have had something to do with him getting thrown out of a wake for whistling a tune.
Here’s Seamus Ennis telling the Thrush story. It’s one of my favorites 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLe9etQ0iwQ
Carolan’s Concerto has an interesting story/stories. I think it is too late for the true story to be verified.
For some reason, not many ITM fans are that enamoured with poor old Carolan. I guess because he is not really trad. at all, at all…
