The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #55827 Message #870011
Posted By: Amos
19-Jan-03 - 01:50 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Puzzle:Edmund Fitzgerald and Bobby Sands
Subject: Origins: Puzzle:Edmund Fitzgerald and Bobby Sands
The good and fayre Gaelic Goddess has raised a puzzle which I would like any help I can find with.
The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, Gordon Lightfoot's smashing hit, hit the charts not too long after the original catastrophe (the EF sank in November 1975). The album containing it is copyrighted in 1976.
Bobby Sands, the Irish poet and political activist was sent to prison in the infamous "H Blocks" also in 1976, I believe, and while he was there he lead a famous hunger strike during which he starved himself to death.
While he was there, he wrote a song:
Back Home in Derry Bobby Sands
In 1803 we sailed out to sea Out from the sweet town of Derry For Australia bound if we didn't all drown And the marks of our fetters we carried...
which uses the same tune as The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
It is possible that the tune was around earlier than either of these songs, also. But the DigiTrad lists the tune of "Back Home in Derry" as having been written by Bobby Sands.
So, which came first? Sands' tune or Lightfoot's? Or, was it a trad tune they both adopted?