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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: Áine Date: 20 Sep 00 - 09:12 AM A Shéamuis, If you mean by 'direct' you mean 'literal', I can't agree there. Ó Maonaigh's version doesn't have any 'green woods' in it, for example. To me, his Irish lyrics draw a much more romantic picture than the English. For example, Ag ceiliúr 's ag ceol agus draíocht ina ghlór agus mheall sé an ógbhean uasal and Go dté mé i gcré ní scarfaidh mé leis an Spailpín béal bhinn fánach. Come on, admit it, this is one of those few times when the translation improves on the original. And if you've ever tried to translate an song in English to the Irish, you know how hard it can be. Not only to capture the intent of the original words; but also to write it well as Gaeilge. Which is exactly what Ó Maonaigh has done here with his beautiful imagery and well turned internal rhyme. Le meas, Áine |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: GUEST,from skarpi at work Date: 20 Sep 00 - 08:30 AM Hallo all, i think I will try to sing one Irish version next time when I perform with my band. We did use the Leo Version when we recorded it. All best skarpi Iceland. |
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Subject: Lyr Add: AN SPAILPÍN FÁNACH From: Seamus Kennedy Date: 20 Sep 00 - 12:00 AM Seo an Spailpín fánach ón sliabh anuas Le coiscéim éadrom lúfar, Ag ceiliúr 's ag ceol agus draíocht ina ghlór, Agus mheall sé an ógbhean uasal.
Ah, dí dú, ah dí dú dah dé,
D'fhág sise teach a hathair féin,
Ah, dí dú, ah dí dú dah dé,
Ghluais a hathair sa tóir 'na ndiadh
Ah, dí dú, ah dí dú dah dé,
Tháinig sé 'r ball go dtí caisleán mór,
Ah, dí dú, ah dí dú dah dé,
"Ní spailpín é," a athair ar sí,
Ah, dí dú, ah dí dú dah dé,
Proinsias Ó Maonaigh, d'aistrigh.
As you can see, Áine, a direct translation of the popular Clancy Brothers version.
Le meas,
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: Bernard Date: 19 Sep 00 - 08:50 PM BTW - the line as I sing it is: 'At last he came to a castle fair' |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: Bernard Date: 19 Sep 00 - 08:47 PM Then there's the Scots song, Lizzie Lindsay - He says 'I fancy you, will you elope with me?' She says 'No way!' He says 'I'm rich, with a title' She says 'Oh, alright then'!! Not too dissimilar in ethic! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: rabbitrunning Date: 19 Sep 00 - 08:36 PM The version I learned was so close to Aine's that I can't remember the words I knew. Hopefully I've written them down somewhere. I do remember thinking that the Gypsy Rover wasn't rich in anything but freedom and the love of his lady, though. I always imagined the father having to go back home grumbling, and I don't remember anything about a mansion. Oh, why don't twelve year olds learn to take proper notes! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: Áine Date: 19 Sep 00 - 11:57 AM Dear Martin, That's the song I was thinking of, all right. So it's Leo Maguire that wrote it, right? I prefer it in Irish (of course), and I've always been impressed with Proinsias Ó Maonaigh's translation abilities. His translations always sound like they are the 'originals'. -- Áine |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: MartinRyan Date: 18 Sep 00 - 05:05 PM Áine Got it. The collection "Abair Amhrán" gives a song under the title "An Spailpín Fánach" which is clearly a trnslation of Maguire's song and intended to be sung to the same air. It states:"Proinsias Ó Maonaigh a d'aistrigh" Carol's set is a translation of the older Irish song of that title which is not really related to the thread topic IMHO. Regards |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: MartinRyan Date: 18 Sep 00 - 04:48 PM Áine Those are Leo Maguire's words, as near as dammit - but I've never seen a version of An Spailpín Fánach that resembled it. Could you be thinking of a translation of Maguire? I'll have a look. Regards |
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Subject: Lyr Add: WHISTLING GYPSY ^^^ From: Áine Date: 17 Sep 00 - 08:24 PM Dear Roger, I have a different set of words that Carol, and these are the ones that are closest to the lyrics that I know in the Irish. I guess you can sing both sets to the tune that you know and see which set of words fits.
A gypsy rover came over the hill, |
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Subject: Lyr Add: AN SPAILPIN FANACH From: CarolC Date: 17 Sep 00 - 07:48 PM AN SPAILPIN FANACH (without fadas) Never again will I go to Cashel Selling and trading my health Nor to the hiring-fair, sitting by the wall A lounger on the roadside The bucks of the country coming on their horses, Asking if I'm hired "Oh lets go, the journey is long" Off goes the Spailpin Fanach. I was left as a Spailpin Fanach Depending on my health Walking the dew early in the morning Catching all the illnesses going around. You'll not see a hook in my hand for harvesting A flail or a short spade, But the flag of France over my bed And the pike for stabbing Five hundred farewells to the land of my father And to the dear island And to the boys of Cualach because they never feared in the trouble times of defense, But now that I'm poor, miserable and alone In these foreign lands I'm heart-broken becauseI got the call To be a Spailpin Fanach. I well remember my people were at one time Over at the bridge at Gail With cattle, with sheep, with little white calves And plenty of horses But it was the will of God that we were evicted And we were left with only our health And what broke my heart everywhere I went "Call here, you Spailpin Fanach." Taken from the liner notes of the Dervish CD, "at the end of the day". Carol |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: Roger in Sheffield Date: 17 Sep 00 - 09:34 AM 'An Spailpín Fánach', do you have words in english Áine. I have the tune already. Roger |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: paddymac Date: 26 Jul 00 - 11:05 PM Thanks to all for your contributions to the discussion. It illustrates once again that you never know where a thread will go, but you can be assured that an honest question will receive honest and considered responses. Educational as well! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: InOBU Date: 26 Jul 00 - 05:30 PM My hat is off to our Russian guest for getting the ninbers right on old James - Thanks.. Larry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: Pseudolus Date: 26 Jul 00 - 03:52 PM Geez, I always took the song to have the message, "Don't judge a book by it's cover" as in, don't make assumptions about people because of their culture, apprearance, race, etc. etc. In fact I prefer to think of it that way. I love a song that has a prejudiced opinion proven to be wrong. It's good for the soul. However, It is interesting to hear the folks who have clearly thought about and researched the song....Interesting thread.... Frank |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: JenEllen Date: 26 Jul 00 - 02:35 PM Thanks InOBU, very informative. ~Elle |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: GUEST,Airto Date: 26 Jul 00 - 01:36 PM I've never been fond of the song we're talking about here. I find the chorus twee and the melody too wholesome. According to the DT, where it appears as Gypsy Rover, it was written by Leo Maguire. Leo presented a programme for many years on Irish radio sponsored by Walton's, a well known music shop in Dublin. He finished up every week with the advice "if you feel like singing a song, do sing an Irish song". Irish music wasn't particularly respectable at the time Maguire started (the 40s or 50s?)and what he's written here, it seems to me, is a bourgeois version of an old story. The second last verse makes it clear that the man she runs away with is indeed wealthy, and not a gypsy: "At last he came to a mansion fine...". So all's well then, etc. The whole message has been transformed compared with the variants mentioned by InOBU. Davy Faa, also in the DT, is much more complex. Have you ever heard a more poetic way of describing a rape ("Twas there he took the wills o'her afore she was won awa'")? Social realism in Scotland obviously didn't begin with Trainspotting.
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: Áine Date: 26 Jul 00 - 12:32 PM Ha! Great minds run in the same direction, eh Larry? You can take what InOBU said to the bank, folks. Go raibh maith agat, a Lorcán. -- Áine |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: GUEST Date: 26 Jul 00 - 12:31 PM Well, my ancestors came from Russia, and spoke various German dialects, so there isn't a drop of Roma in these veins. However I perform a variant of this song under the title of Black Jack Davey. Mine borrows heavily from versions collected in Virginia, and one recorded by Woody Guthrie. I understand that the song came from Great Britain, and appeared about the time of James VI of Scotland, aka James I of England. While he was on the Scottish throne, James decides to kick all the "Egyptians" out of Scotland. One of them, whose name is supposedly Johnny Faa defies the order, and in some versions never leaves Scotland, or in other versions of the story returns to Scotland. Eventually the Law catches up with Johnny Faa, and they hang him. The songwriters of the day got hold of the story, and in the end we have our Whistling Gypsy Rover, or Black Jack Davey, or Gypsy Davey. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: InOBU Date: 26 Jul 00 - 12:20 PM Well folks, here comes the last word on the Whitling Gypsy! In all the earlier versions, it is the HUSBAND who runs after her, and she has left home and baby to run off with one or more Roma. It is part of the orientalist view of Roma as romantic and exotic. However, it is rare that Roma marry outside the Roma community, though among all Roma, Romanichales as well as Vlax Roma, when it happens, it is more likely, as in the song, a woman marring into the tribe. Now, there may be a historical precident for the song, as women had a greater position of power in Roma society, and there were cases where gyzhey did marry Rom. As to the version where it is her father running after her, From James the second to the eighteenth century being Rom carried a sentence from death to transportation, in Scotland Roma men were hanged and the women and children drowned, so a dad would not concider a Rom to be a great catch for his daughter, unless she swam very well while tied to a heavy wieght or could hold her breath underwater for days. Some earlier varrients are Nine Yellow Gypsies, Gypsie Davie, Raggle Taggle Gypsy, the american version Black Jack Davie, the Gypsy Rover and on and on. Any of the early Scotish Ballads about Jamie Faa, are also about Rom, by the by, Faa was the Ray Boro (chieftan) of Scotland's Romanichales, at the time that James ordered them out, under threat of exicution, so a lot of the strange little songs about people being led away to death for no apparent reason in Scotish ballads often concern the genocide agianst Roma. Das baxtalo hai Sastimos Larry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: Áine Date: 26 Jul 00 - 12:19 PM Dear paddymac, InOBU would be a great fella to ask in on this discussion, and I would be very interested in hearing his opinion of the song. Send him a PM, OK? -- Áine |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: paddymac Date: 26 Jul 00 - 12:09 PM Aine - thank you for the very interesting insight to the Irish version of the song. The "itinerant farmworker" here would probably be equated with "migrants" (los migrantes?) which would have about the same pejorative content as "gypsies" seems to have in Europe. There was a time when those low paid, unskilled jobs were filled by hungry "anglos", but in today's world they have largely been replaced or displaced by other groups. As a kid growing up in the American mid-west, I heard the stories about "a Gypsy" took this, that, or the other thing or person, whatever or whoever happened to turn up missing. But I don't recall any of the kids giving voice to negative views about "Gypsies." Mostly, I recall that we romanticised them as care-free adventurers and wanderers, going where they wanted when they wanted. "Travellers" in a more literal sense of the word. Ah, for the youthful fantasy of freedom without responsibility. Although there are gypsy groups here, I suspect that the antipathy of the adults of my youth was probably a hand-me-down brought over by previous generations from Europe. It appears to be what is called a "folk-way". I can also see the bases for the interpretations GaryT and Soph have suggested, and though phrased differently, I think views expressed by Animaterra and Bob are essentially the same. Do we have any Romas or Roma descendants in the family who might offer a view of the song? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: Downeast Bob Date: 26 Jul 00 - 10:23 AM Gypsies may have seemed like no-goodniks to the do-right daddies of young ladies, but I think most of the songs about them come down on the side of the daughters who see them as free, charming, and probably sexy. I think the gypsies of European folklore are kind of like the hoboes of American folkmusic. They don't own squat, but they have the horizon and a way with the ladies. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: Áine Date: 26 Jul 00 - 10:18 AM Thank you very much for the 'CNP', paddymac. The version of 'Whistling Gypsy' that I learned was in Irish, and titled 'An Spailpín Fánach'. Now 'spailpín' is the word for an itinerant farm worker in Ireland, whose life was full of hard physical labor, low wages and maltreatment by landowners. Even the word 'spailpíín' came to mean a person of low character, which is also, of course, the common stereotypical image of the Irish Travelers and the Roma. I don't know which language the song was originally written in, but I find it interesting that the Irish language version does not call the young fella a 'tincéir' (Tinker/Gypsy), but a 'spailpín' (traveling farm worker). So, looking at the song in Irish, it doesn't seem to me that it should be considered particularly prejudiced or 'racist'. -- Áine |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: Gary T Date: 26 Jul 00 - 10:10 AM Makes sense to me, Sophocleese. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: AllisonA(Animaterra) Date: 26 Jul 00 - 09:59 AM I first heard it, "He is no gypsy my father," said she, "but lord of free lands all over." I always took it to mean, "He isn't a no good bum like you think, dad, but a free spirit, not bound by convention, and that's the way I want to live, thank you very much." Talk about your historical revisionism- but that's the way I think! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: sophocleese Date: 26 Jul 00 - 09:54 AM So Gary T. If we put our postings together we come up with a romantic song that has a pleasant tune but isn't going to disrupt any social order, or provoke much deep thought over such issues. Unless of course you are at the bottom of the heap, or outside the circle in which case it might bother you to hear it too much. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: sophocleese Date: 26 Jul 00 - 09:47 AM Like MMArio I have always assumed that the father was pissed because she ran away with anybody. The inferior social status of her partner made it even worse but also showed that she really did love the guy as she was willing to put up with hardship in order to be with him. The ending just restates the proprieties, this was a one time deal so we'll let it pass, so that other young women will be less willing to run off with poor young men. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: Gary T Date: 26 Jul 00 - 09:43 AM I'm no expert on this, but here's my opinion anyway. Pops would have been upset about his daughter running off with any poor bum of a stranger, Gypsy or no. But by calling the rover a Gypsy, it's automatically to be assumed that he is indeed a poor no-good bum--after all, aren't they all? Gypsies and beggarmen seem to be considered suspect, the difference being the beggar is being judged by what he does where the Gypsy is being judged for what he is, ethnically. It's not that the song actively disparages Gypsies, but that it repeats and accepts the prevalent prejudice against them. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: paddymac Date: 26 Jul 00 - 09:40 AM I'm still "HTML challenged" and haven;'t learned how to do BCTs, but here's a CNP (cut 'n paste)(:>) of Larry's msg. It comes from the "Do you play in a police state?" thread, which is a great discussion. The discussion at this point was about an interview Larry did in re some book which he found sorely lacking in merit. Subject: RE: Do you play in a Police State? From: InOBU Date: 25-Jul-00 - 06:08 PM Hi Kat: No he interviewed me after he inadvertantly made a racist remark about Roma (Gypsies). He had a rather racist guest, an author, and offered me an opportunity to debate his guest. His guest turned tail and ran, so I had an hour to my point of view.
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: MMario Date: 26 Jul 00 - 09:37 AM I always assumed the father searched after his daughter because she was his daughter and she had run off...; the fact that everything became hunky-dory when he finds out that her lover is rich has always bugged me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Whistling Gypsy From: Áine Date: 26 Jul 00 - 09:29 AM Dear paddymac, Could you please give us a blue clicky thing to Larry's original comment? I'd like to address your question, but I want to see what inspired it before I do. Thanks, Áine |
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Subject: Whistling Gypsy From: paddymac Date: 26 Jul 00 - 12:52 AM Something InOBU mentioned about the Roma people in another thread got me thinking about this song. It's a great pub song, really made for singing with good , easy harmonies, and our audiences seem to really enjoy it. But, to be honest, I hadn't really thought of it as disparaging to Gypsies. But, the story line involes the father chasing after his daughter who ran-off with the "Whistling Gypsy", and when he finally finds her/them, she says: "well, Pops, he's not really a Gypsy, but he is 'Lord of these lands all over'". Question: did Pops chase her because she ran off with the proverbial handsome stranger, or did he chase her because she ran off with a Gypsy, who also just happened to be the proverbial handsome stranger? |
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