Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?

Subject: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 12:10 PM

Hi all

A good friend of mine spent a couple nights in Dublin recently and was surprised that it appears that the way "Fields of Athenry" is commonly performed is as an up-beat sing-a-long almost like "Wild Rover" with even comments yelled from the audience during the chorus and such. He heard the song performed this way in at least 3 different pubs.

This confused him to some extent. We're used to it being performed fairly solemnly as typically befits a sad song. He and I are all in favor of interpretations of songs, but this was quite surprising.

Has anyone else experienced this?

pax yall

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: UB Ed
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 12:14 PM

Yeah, I've heard it twice with an upbeat; no yelling though (What could one possibly yell?). Maybe that's what folks were referring to on a previous thread (Been adpoted by some football team?).

I think I favor the traditional, slower version.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 12:15 PM

Omigod! Now I am hearing this in my head as a bluegrass tune! (Mindcreep, not thread creep!)

I am more accustomed to hearing things that are usually done upbeat, slowed down for a new mood.

Oh dear. Now I am hearing Pass Me Not O Gentle Savior done as a mountain wail.

~S~

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: GUEST,Matt_R
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 12:17 PM

I just got an image of me beloved Pogues singing it!

FAR! LIE! THE FIELDS OF ATHENRY!

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 12:18 PM

I can't remember what my friend said they were saying - It was after the thing about the birds flying - they audience yell something to the effect of "Fly birds, fly!"

It's odd to me because there are plenty of upbeat songs to sing.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: UB Ed
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 12:18 PM

Previous Thread

Susan, you may want to lie down a bit...

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 12:32 PM

It's 'Hey Baby, watch the free birds fly'

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 12:39 PM

UB Ed, too late!

O, Dem Golden Slippers (and I Come to the Garden Alone)-- as lovely, slow fiddle waltzes! (Golden Slippers has a nice little yodeling part now too! O (dee-lo) Dem Gol-den Slippers...) So in my head they are dancing in a heavenly garden and they are ALL wearing their golden slippers... it's very pretty! (THAT's the dance band I wanna be in!)

I prayed for this ability, but now-- uh oh!

Seriously, I am pretty talented in the area of rhythm, but I am also talented in the area of absorbing soungs as I have heard them... mimic ability, down to the twangs and tricks various singers are prone to. These abilities clashed whenever I tried to re-fashion a song to another rhythmic style. Now the walls between these two abilities have fallen down, and maybe I DO need to lie down!

It will be interesting to see what happens at our Saturday Night Service this week...

Thanks, I think!

("Preacher and the Bear" as a slow, prayerful blues piece... very funny!)

~Susan

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 12:58 PM

I ought to point out that The Fields of Athenry is a regular 'anthem' type song in Dublin and so it gets this anthem-type treatment. I've heard the song far too many times myself, I don't care how they do it as long as they get it over with quickly. It's a shame that this happens to songs like the Wild Rover, which might have been a good song once. Even Streets of London (one of the finest-crafted songs written) can jar after the first five hundred times you hear it.

Susan - doing familiar musical stuff in an unfamiliar way can be great fun. I remember the time we took St Anne's Reel and played it as a waltz, jig, cha-cha, tango...

Les

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: GUEST,Matt_R
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 01:14 PM

Well, then you get people like me. I've never heard Streets of London performed (I sing it, but learned it from a MIDI). I know the words to Wild Rover, but I've never actually heard it. I don't even know how the tune goes.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 02:08 PM

Good Lord Matt,

You don't get out much do you? (just joking - is there any Irish music available where you live? - Pick up a Clancy Brother's Album or two. Wild Rover has to be in the Irish Top 40.)

And I agree to some extent about the ruination of some of the fun songs. I still don't get the "Rise up yer klit" yell in Wild Rover. I thought it was fine with the clapping. I'm guess I don't know what humorous kilts need to be doing in the song - especially a bitter-sweet song like Wild Rover.

On the other side - I love the version of "Wild Colonial Boy that'd I heard years ago to a Reggae rhythm, with the first line: "There was a wild Rastafarian boy . . ."

pax yall

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: GUEST
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 02:15 PM

I sang a song in a singaround last year, which I'd never heard sung. I picked up the words/music in the local music library. Someone told me later that it's more usually sung at a fast lick. Shan't change my version, as it went down well, anyway.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: sophocleese
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 02:39 PM

Blackcatter, I think "up your klit!" is a wonderful thing to yell in Wild Rover and one day I may have the nerve to do so. Until then I'll probably be boring and simply yell, "Up your Kilt!"

Sophocleese, sniggering quietly to herself.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Matt_R
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 02:39 PM

Irish music? HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH!

I have 2 Clancys albums, with well over 50 songs on them...no Wild Rover.

When I read what you wrote that the yell was, I almost died laughing! (read it again!)

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Moleskin Joe
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 02:45 PM

It's not "rise" up your kilt. It's "right" up. Good Luck, Ian M.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 05:32 PM

oops.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 05:42 PM

Gee, ya know,

I think that my inadvertant mdification is kinda nice. - Removes the whole Scot/Irish mixture.

I've got Wild Rover on 9 different albums, including:

Clancy Bros. & Tommy Makem - Reunion
Clancy Bros. & Tommy Makem - Greatest Irish Hits
Clancy Bros. & Robbie O'Connell - Tunes & Tales of Ireland
Clancy Bros. & Louis Killen - Live on St. Patrick's Day
The Tommy Makem Songbag
Dubliners - Wild Rover

Not that it's a big deal, but has anyone else heard the upbeat version of Athenry?

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: GUEST,Paddy(1)
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 07:21 PM

Don't know what version you are referring to but one Brush Sheilds does a rock version of F o A which is interesting.
I think it is on a recording somewhere . . . .

Paddy(1)

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: vindelis
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 08:12 PM

If you go to Clifden, Connemara, you will certainly hear a more up-tempo version of F o A. I suppose it is more 'Country'; as opposed to the slower 'Folk' versions, that 'traditionalists' are used to. - But then how slow is 'slow'?

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: alison
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 09:06 PM

and then there is the techno version that they play in the clubs....... which I now own...... brilliant after you get over the shock!!!! lol

a dance floor full of people singing the fields of athenry and pogo-ing is a bit bizarre.....

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Wotcha
Date: 18 Apr 01 - 11:22 PM

It is very tempting to yell, after the line "I heard a young girl calling" .... MICHAEL !!!! ... After a few pints down the pub ... who wouldn't ...?
Cheers,
Brian

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Robo
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 12:14 AM

I was in Clifden last year, as a matter of fact, and only heard the traditional version. And WYSI, based on other messages here, I must say bluegrass is hardly the worst fate "Fields" could suffer. The songs not meant to be uptempo no matter what game you're playing.

Rob-o

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: UB Ed
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 08:13 AM

So basically folks are taking a Rocky Horror Picture Show approach to Athenry. I'd love to hear the techno version, Alison.

I guess the crowd could throw corn, water (bay), chains (crown), confetti stars....

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: death by whisky
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 03:32 PM

I play it up tempo (yes im back at trad and ballad),for the younger audience,slower for the more mature audience.Its been adopted as an anthem for the Munster rugby team.Im not sure what the responses are.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 04:46 PM

Yea Gods! A rugby anthem! Couldn't they pick something more appropriate - say "Bloody Well Dead?"

pax yall

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: chessell
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 07:26 PM

No Use for a Name does an upbeat punk version of the Fields of Athenry. It starts off slow but then the elctric guitar and drumkit come in....

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Matt_R
Date: 19 Apr 01 - 07:28 PM

Three lions on a shirt
Jules Rimet still gleaming
Thirty years of hurt
Never stopped me dreaming...

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Hillheader
Date: 20 Apr 01 - 02:25 AM

I heard FoA sung upbeat over two years ago in Tenerife and it was great.

Perhaps the origins of the faster version stem from us Glasgow Celtic (soccer)fans who have this as an anthem. Getting 60000 people (and yes there are that many of us at each game!!) to sing slow is impossible so the pace picks up.

They play the slow version (by Paddy Reilly) over the sound system before each game and last week even had the Irish Tenors perform is live.

Regards

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: GUEST,GUEST,Jer
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 11:12 AM

Brush Sheilds has an album out with 12 or 13 songs sung in this upbeat fashon. The songs include Molly Malone, Wild Rover, F o A, The Tractor Song, Dirty old Town etc. I shall get the name of it and post it up asap.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 11:32 AM

Fields of Athenry is also the anthem of London Irish Rugby team. Personally I think its the least Irish sounding Irish song I've ever come across!!!

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 12:36 PM

Its football connection started with Glasgow Celtic supporters, who tend to be of a, ummm, Catholic/Irish nationalist disposition.

I'd say it's the combination of football terrace idiom and victimhood fatigue that led to the more upbeat versions.

But I would have thought it would go even better in a reggae rhythm.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: GUEST,celtaddict
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 07:17 PM

In New York/New Jersey one sometimes hears Fields of Athenry sung in the usual (for U.S.) somber way with an addition, in the chorus: the line, "Where once we watched the small free birds fly..." is followed by audience members chanting "Go, baby, let the free birds fly!" without the singer changing his tempo.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 09 Apr 03 - 09:23 PM

My god,

New info on a question nearly two years after the question was asked.

Thanks!

Blackcatter

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: GUEST,GerMan
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 04:21 AM

Bored of Fields of Athenry? Try these alternative lyrics:

Remember our Fathers brave & bold
As they fought for Ulster's cause
In far off lands
And my Father said to me
You must join the YCV
With a rifle or a pistol in my hand

Lyrics from the other side of the fence!

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: kendall
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 05:43 AM

I like bluegrass, but, I hate it when they do MAKE ME A PALLET by driving the piss out of it.
Same with East Virginia.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: MC Fat
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 07:17 AM

There's a Midlands based band in England called 'Meet on the Ledge' who do an upbeat version with lots of tom toms on the drums. Still doesn't make the song any betterer

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: GUEST,GerMan
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 09:17 AM

Meet on the Ledge are playing at this year's Cropredy Festival. I was looking forward to seeing them but now I know that they do rebel songs I'm not so keen.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: MC Fat
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 09:25 AM

They don't just do rebel songs in fact that's probably the only one. They do some of their own and their 'interpretations' of other stuff. For instance they do a version of 'Ranzo me boys' which is all brash loud and fast and sort of misses the point but they are quite reasonable to listen to.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 01:00 PM

Funny,

I never really thought of Athenry as a Rebel song. A song of protest - of starvation and lost hope, but not a lets "fight for our rights" kind of song.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Brakn
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 01:50 PM

A rebel song? No.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 10 Apr 03 - 06:24 PM

I have heard it done very well as a RAP by a musician friend who told the audience that he was was fed up doing the normal version at every wake, wedding and christening he played at. Some songs get done to death. I'm sure a change now and again does them good. Why should FoA be any different from any other song and not be re-arranged to suit the audience.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: UB Ed
Date: 11 Apr 03 - 11:29 AM

rap?

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: kendall
Date: 11 Apr 03 - 12:19 PM

If you have no real feel for the song, it doesn't matter what you do to it. Sorta reminds you of rape, eh?

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: UB Ed
Date: 11 Apr 03 - 12:56 PM

Except without the "e"

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: GUEST,Stevo
Date: 19 Jun 03 - 10:58 PM

You can all find a very loud and rousing version on the Irish themed punk band Dropkick Murphy's newest album "blackout"

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Schantieman
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 04:30 AM

Oh, no! Not "The Fields of Athenry"!
I've heard that song so much it makes me cry.
I hate that bloody thing -
There are far better songs to sing.
I've had it with "The Fields of Athenry"!

S

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: NoMattch
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 03:50 PM

There's a Glasgow Celtic band called Athenry that do a decent upbeat version. The audience parcipitation where I am call out..

"Hey, baby. Let the free birds fly."
Our love...
"Sinn Fein"
There were dreams...
"I.R.A."
It's so lonely...

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: UB Ed
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 04:09 PM

Oh.

That versions' not allowed in our pub, NoMattch.

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: Songster Bob
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 04:19 PM

Two words:



FREE BIRD!



Bob

Subject: RE: Fields of Athenry - performed upbeat?
From: GUEST,Y Star
Date: 20 Jun 03 - 05:40 PM

OK. To contribute further... I heard the 'upbeat' version of 'Fields' at the Bog in Auckland NZ a few months ago, sung by a man called Owen (I think) who works there, I think the chanted bits were 'baby baby watch the free birds fly'/'shoot (or much worse) the Queen'/'IRA'. I laughed muchly as I too had only heard the downbeat/serious version before. Although I probably shouldn't have laughed... anyway, the 'up-yer-kilt' thing in 'Wild Rover', I've also heard one lady say (in purposefully affected 'haughty' tone of voice) 'right up your skirt'.

Meanwhile... I shall leave you with this quote (or paraphrase) from an early 90s Aussie skit show on TV...

You just call out my name and you know wherever I am I'll come running to see you again - (woman's offstage voice) 'JAMES!!' - (singer) 'not now' -
Winter Spring Summer or Fall, all you've got to do is call - 'JAMES...' - 'shut up!!' -
And I'll be there, yes I will, you've got a friend - 'JAMES!!!!' - 'will you SHUT UP while I'm trying to sing the bloody song...'

Y :)