Lyr Req: Love Is Kind (The Clancy Brothers)

Subject: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: GUEST,threelegsoman
Date: 04 Mar 16 - 07:57 PM

I have had a request for me to sing the song "Love Is Kind" as performed by The Clancy Brothers.
It is one that I have not come across previously and I cannot work out the lyrics from the video of theirs on YouTube.
Does anybody have the lyrics and if possible the chords too?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: GUEST,#
Date: 04 Mar 16 - 10:28 PM

https://lynchedfolkmiscreants.bandcamp.com/track/love-is-kind

That's the lyrics. I will look for chords in the morning. If not, I'll put the chords on.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: GUEST,#
Date: 04 Mar 16 - 10:31 PM

PS Same lyrics the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem use.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: GUEST,threelegsoman
Date: 06 Mar 16 - 02:11 AM

Thank you so much for the link to the lyrics. That is very helpful. If you can manage to put in the chords too, I will again be very grateful, but in the meantime, I will try to work them out for myself.

Subject: ADD Version: Love Is Kind
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Mar 16 - 03:12 AM

Links often get old and die, so I encourage people to post the lyrics.

LOVE IS KIND

Oh love is kind to the least of men
Oíche Mhaith
Though he be but a drunken tar
Oíche Mhaith

So far from men, and the sight of land
Oíche Mhaith
Haul along, the sailor man
Oíche...

So take me to that star‐eyed maid,
For I was happy with her lain

Oh in the comfort of her bed
Let me lie until I'm dead

For love is kind to the least of men
Though he be but a drunken tar


credits
from Cold Old Fire, released May 25, 2014
Trad. arr. Lynched

Robin Roberts, the American singer and folksong collector, who accompanied Alan Lomax and Séamus Ennis on their Irish collecting trips in 1951 and 1953, sang this song which came from a retired clipper ship's sailor living in Massachusetts. We first heard it from the Clancy brothers and Tommy Makem on their LP 'Sing of the Sea' (1968). The refrain has been variously interpreted as 'E awa', 'Hie awa', 'Haul awa', and even 'i a bha', Scots Gaelic for 'she was'. Interestingly, no-one seems to have understood it as the Gaelic 'Oíche mhaith' (Goodnight), which we always have. We respectfully dedicate this song to the memory of Teresa Dermody.


Source: https://lynchedfolkmiscreants.bandcamp.com/track/love-is-kind

Clancy Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fmxx9jJzNBo

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: MartinRyan
Date: 06 Mar 16 - 04:52 AM

Interesting one. I've never heard it before despite hearing a lot of Clancys back in the day - and a lot of seasongs thereafter!

While I like Lynched's (sic) idea of "Oíche mhaith" as the response line, it's not what the Clancys were singing, to my ear. Too late to ask them, unfortunately. I remember singing shanties with Liam at a session somewhere in Tipperary many years ago - run by two (ex-?) 'catters, if I remember rightly.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: MartinRyan
Date: 06 Mar 16 - 04:54 AM

OK - just read the "related thread". Very interesting.

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: GUEST,#
Date: 06 Mar 16 - 08:47 AM

(C)Oh love is (F)kind to the least of (C)men

Eeah(G)wa Eeah(C)wa

(C)Though he (F)be but a drunken (C)tar

Eeah(G)wa(C)awa


The Eaghwa stuff is so I know which syllable gets the chord. I know no Gaelic of any variety, but those chords should do it for you. You may be more comfortable in another key (because I have no idea what the Clancys are playing in). However, any transposition to another key should be fairly straight forward. If there's a problem, please let me know GUEST,threelegsoman.

PS Please link to your preformance when you can. You have helped many people around the world with your videos/performances, and in doing so helped keep some music alive. Best wishes to you. :-)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Mar 16 - 02:12 AM

Once again, thanks for all the help. The chords as given above are what I had worked out from the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Mskem's version, but they did it in the key of D.
As to the pronunciation of 'Oíche mhaith' although it may not look like it to anybody who does not know Erse, that is in fact what the Clancys are singing which to the uninitiated does sound a bit like "Ee awa".

I will be uploading my version later today.

Thanks again for all the help.

threelegsoman

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: MartinRyan
Date: 07 Mar 16 - 03:39 AM

Hi Threelegsoman

Believe me - I know what Irish sounds like! ;>)> To read "mhaith" into what the Clancys sing on that recording is stretching things a little, at least. Both the long "aw" sound and the fade at the end are at odds with the normal pronunciation of the word.

To be clear, I'm not saying that "oíche mhaith" wasn't the origin (though I doubt it) - but that the Clancys weren't singing it.

Oíche mhaith!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: GUEST,silver
Date: 07 Mar 16 - 06:09 AM

Gordon Bok sings it on his CD "In Concert", 2006, under the title "Hie Awa".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Mar 16 - 07:20 AM

Martin Ryan,

I entered Oíche Mhaith into a new app that lets you hear what Irish words sound like, and the first example on that site to my ears does indeed sound like ee awa.
I do not know Erse, so cannot argue the point, but perhaps the pronunciation varies around different parts of Ireland.
So in my own version which I have just uploaded, I sing it as ee awa and write it in the annotations as Oíche Mhaith.
I do know however that in Manx, my own country's language, 'good night' is Oie vie which is pronounced ee vie (rhyming with 'eye')

Here is a link to my own version:
Love Is Kind (Including lyrics and chords)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: Mrrzy
Date: 07 Mar 16 - 11:02 AM

What do the phrases mean? The one here and the one the Clancys sing, if different?

Also, if you look at the posted lyrics while listening to the Clancy Brothers you can understand them... the singers, I mean.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: MartinRyan
Date: 07 Mar 16 - 11:17 AM

Mrrzy

The phrase just means "Goodnight!"

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: MartinRyan
Date: 07 Mar 16 - 11:28 AM

I suppose the best way to describe the Irish pronunciation is that there's a "clipped h" at the end of the word "mhaith" - rather than a simple fading "aawww".

It's a perfectly reasonable and appropriate phrase to use in the context of the song. It is not, however, what the Clancys sing FWIW and , in the absence of evidence, unlikely to be the source phrase.

Drifting slightly - there's a Dublin slang word "mot" or "mott" for a girll/woman which is sometimes claimed to be derived from the Gaelic "cailín maith" which means "good girl". In fact, it was once much more widespread and probably derives from a Dutch word for a woman who was anything but good!

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Love Is Kind by The Clancys
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Aug 17 - 02:44 PM

I heard this sung at a song and music session in Staffordshire earlier this year. When I asked the singer about its provenance he said it came from Cyril Tawney, via his widow Rosemary. Be that as it may, his version had an additional penultimate verse:

Here's my blessing let it be.....
May you love as she loved me.....