Happy Bloomsday to you! I have a confession – I’ve never read all of Ulysees, but to make up for that literary failure I’ll sing a poem of Joyce’s for you! My friend, poet and renowned translator of works to the Irish language, Gabriel Rosenstock sent this poem of Joyce’s my way a few weeks back and we thought it’d be something interesting to let blossom for Bloomsday. So as usual I let the words guide me to a melody and arranged a piece on guitar which I think works well. The original English language version, Gabriel’s translation and the instrumental guitar version ) for all you krazy karaoke fans! 🙂 ) are available on my Bandcamp page and here below.
Tar go dtí an fhuinneog
(Aistriúchán ar Lean out of the Window le James Joyce)
Tar go dtí an fhuinneog
‘Niamh Chinn Óir.
Chuala tú ’canadh
I do bhinnghlór.
Dhúnas an leabhar.
Ní léim níos mó.
Breathnaím ar lasracha
Ó óró.
D’fhágas an leabhar.
Is an seomra d’fhág
Mar chuala mé amhrán
Tríd an scáil.
Ag canadh os ard
I do bhinnghlór.
Tar go dtí an fhuinneog
’Niamh Chinn Óir.
Lean out of the window
Lean out of the window,
Goldenhair,
I heard you singing
A merry air.
My book is closed;
I read no more,
Watching the fire dance
On the floor.
I have left my book,
I have left my room,
For I heard you singing
Through the gloom,
Singing and singing
A merry air.
Lean out of the window,
Goldenhair.
I have a lot of songs I’ve written over the years and here’s a strangely jaunty one that deals with the theme of Ocean Acidification. Not the sexiest headline-claiming topic but nonetheless extremely important. This video was played at the Paris COP21 five years ago now to try and bring more awareness to the problem. I have started eating more mussels in the last few months as they are very sustainable and as filter feeders they are very nutritious for humans. So they’re a not-too-expensive source of good protein for me. Listen for my explanation and the song. And below is the original folk song Molly Malone from a recent Live Stream.
The first two episodes will be available from the 8th of June. Each month on the 8th you’ll get two new recordings of Irish folk songs which will be available as both an audio podcast and as a video on Youtube. They’ll be mainly new versions of popular Celtic songs, ballads or Irish pub songs plus some of my originals in the folk style, maybe. The show will be 10 minutes long with a short introduction and the high quality audio of the songs from each episode will be available from www.themusicalpint.com which is my bandcamp page for the time being.
Video version. –
The video version will be available on my Youtube channel as part of The Musical Pint Playlist.
If you can’t find it through your podcast provider let me know thanks.
Requests!
If you’ve any traditional Irish song you’d like me to perform then do let me know! If I know it or it’s a good fit for me I may arrange a version and put it in the show.
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