The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #47885   Message #719363
Posted By: GUEST,Philippa
29-May-02 - 07:27 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Deoindi
Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Deoindi
I've sent Alison the sheet music from Ó hÉidhin so that she can provide Mudcat with ABC and/or MIDI sometime soon.

Recordings include Seosamh Ó hEanaí (or Ó hÉiniú ?) / Joe Heaney and Seoirse Ó Dochartaigh.
Seoirse's album notes say that the song-name 'Deoíndí' is untranslatable and calls this "A curious child-like song from Galway. The lines 'nch imomaí cor is cleas do chroí nach bhfuair mé amach' (Many's a labyrinth in your heart) suggested a musical labyrinth of some sort," so he added an interval with the tune 'Fead an Iolair' (The Eagle's Whistle) "played on guitar ith a tin-whistle piece spiralling around it, in a manner of speaking."

Seoirse translates the song as follows (leaving out the refrain lines): My love is so nice that I cannot remove it,
My love is as proper as a glass in an ale-house,
My love is as heavy as a stone in a ditch;
Isn't your heart such a curious labyrinth?
Nettles and a yellow flower grow where my house once stood.

I accidentally left out verse 2 above, likening the love to a drinking glass(!):

Deoíndí ó deighil dum, is tá mo ghrá chomh cóis;
Deoíndí ó deighil dum, Is gloine i dteach an óil -
Is deoíndí ó deighil dum!

.

Seoirse Ó Dochartaigh has a couple of verses beyond those given by Ó hidhin. Starting with verse 5 about the nettles (neantóga) around the homestead:

Deoíndí ó deighil lum
Neantóga is bláth buí
Deoíndí…
Tá a' fás ar áit mo thí
Is deoíndí…

…Murach an drochshaol…
…Bheadh mo mhuintir cruinn…