The Mountain Streams Where The Moorcocks Crow waltz

Of course it’s not a waltz but a lovely slow air played by Eamonn Cotter in his album : The Knotted Chord.

http://www.joeheaney.org/default.asp?contentID=954

This can also be found on a CD “My Father Told Me” by Francy Devine - https://francydevine.bandcamp.com/releases, a superb rendition in my humble and musically uneducated opinion.

By the Mountain Streams Where the Moorcocks Crow

With my dog and gun through the blooming heather
For game and pleasure I made my way
I spied a maiden tall and handsome
Her eyes enticed me some time to stay

Said I, ‘fair maid, don’t you know I love you
Tell me your name and your dwelling also’
‘Excuse my name, Sir, you’ll find my dwelling
By the mountain streams where the moorcocks crow.’

Said I, ‘Fair maid, if you wed a farmer
You’ll be tied for life to one plot of land.
I’m a roving Johnnie if you’ll go with me
You will have no ties so give me your hand.’

‘If my parents knew, Sir, I loved a rover
I am sure twould be my overthrow
So I’ll stay at home, Sir, another season
By the mountain streams where the moorcocks crow.’

‘So its fare thee well, love, another season
We will meet again by yon wooded vale
And I’ll sit you down, love, upon my knew then
And I’ll listen to your lovesick tale.’

And its arm in arm we will go together
By yon lofty trees to the valley below
Where the linnets sing their song so sweetly
By the mountain streams where the moorcocks crow.

love this version by Andy Stewart..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LfTtXxiZIw

play video

Please - “ by Andy M. Stewart” [ RIP ]. “Andy Stewart” - without the “M”, is a different bowl o‘ brose a’ thegither.

This field recording of a (I think) young Dolores Keane is my current favorite version of the song:
https://sounds.bl.uk/World-and-traditional-music/Terry-Yarnell-Collection/025M-C1005X0002XX-0700V0

There are many amazing recordings to listen to on the British Library “Sounds” site.

Jarlath Henderson’s beautiful version and what he says about the song:
“I attribute this song to the singer and raconteur, Paddy Tunny. Paddy was born in Glasgow to Irish parents. His family then settled in Fermanagh. Paddy recorded many albums throughout the 1950s and up until the 1980s. This is yet another tale of unrequited love and longing. His beautifully descriptive language paints a vivid picture of the landscape, and adds a dream-like quality to the story.”

https://jarlathhenderson.bandcamp.com/track/the-mountain-streams-where-the-moorcocks-crow

In the recording of Dolores Keane linked above, she is singing in concert pitch in D minor
(there are no B’s in the tune, so the B flat in the key signature is irrelevant).
By transposing the setting from Pierre LAÏLY , simplifying it and changing a few notes here and there
I got this setting that I can play along (on the concertina) with Dolores’s singing.
(It’s not perfect because notating airs is pretty difficult, but one can adjust to get the phrasing to match
the singing.)

I forgot to mention that an important difference between setting X2 and setting X1 is that
Dolores starts the song on the third (f in Dmin) and then the second line starts on the forth (g).
In setting X1, both lines start on the forth (a in Edor). Maybe that’s the way Eamonn Cotter played it,
but since I have listened to Dolores’s version so many times, I must start on the third or it seems very wrong.

Here is a closer version to Dolores singing.
It’s also interresting to have a look here :
https://thesession.org/tunes/17091

Thanks Pierre! I’m sure that will be a better version for people to play as an air.

Everyone, be sure to listen to this recording of Dolores
https://sounds.bl.uk/World-and-traditional-music/Terry-Yarnell-Collection/025M-C1005X0002XX-0700V0
According the date on the recording and the Wiki article about Dolores, she was just sixteen years old
(two months away from seventeen) when it was recorded.

In this recording she’s curiously not singing the sharp Gs I wrote in the second transcription. So it looks more like Eamonn Cotter’s version, except the first note (G instead of A).