Lyr Add: The Great Tom Crean (Derry Healy)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: THE GREAT TOM CREAN (Derry Healy)
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 07:45 PM

Another Tom Crean thread here* and it gives links at the top to still more of them. This thread really ought to be tied in there too. There's more than one song about this great historical figure.

*
Ballad of Tom Crean

http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=130163

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: THE GREAT TOM CREAN (Derry Healy)
From: Rog Peek
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 07:08 PM

Yes, it is 2012.

Rog

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: THE GREAT TOM CREAN (Derry Healy)
From: Leadfingers
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 06:59 PM

Looks like its this years CD release Mary , so it IS a new song .

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: THE GREAT TOM CREAN (Derry Healy)
From: mg
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 06:37 PM

I'm confused..is this a fairly new one? We have had a couple of others about the great man (did I say my ggm was a Crean?) Have you seen the very old recording of his teammates singing a song for him? mg

Subject: Lyr Add: THE GREAT TOM CREAN (Derry Healy)
From: Rog Peek
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 04:26 PM

THE GREAT TOM CREAN
(Derry Healy)

You've heard it told, of the great South Pole
Of names we've heard, we've seen.
Not one would say they're better
Than the man we call Tom Crean
Left his home at fifteen years
To hell with life that way
On a navy ship, he sailed with it
Sailed into history.

Chorus
And the cold winds they are blowing
For the brave men and they're pain
Life's Antarctic quest, Our Lord he blessed us
With the great Tom Crean

With Robert Scott and Shackleton
They sailed the great ice fields
Once down there the smiles were ripped
With the blizzards of raging winds
Men they cried and some they died
Trying to reach they're dream
No cry, no fear, no grave out here
For the man we call Tom Crean.

Chorus

On the roughest seas they cling to life
Eight hundred miles or more
To save the lives of fellow men,
He'd done it all before.
And later when he settled down,
When home to him did call
His brave deeds lay unspoken
Around his native Annascaul.

Chorus
Repeat chorus.

RP June2012

Heard Derry sing this in The Lake Hotel, Killarney, while we were there during the Easter break.

From the liner notes to the song: "Derry, who has written a number of songs over the years, was inspired to write the song about his fellow Kerryman, 'The Great Tom Crean' after reading Michael Smith's 'An Unsung Hero' and seeing the documentary by Charlie Bird on Irish television. He was also hugely impressed by Aidan Dooley's show 'Tom Crean'."