Samhain Tunes/Songs

Subject: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: Vixen
Date: 22 Oct 08 - 11:21 AM

D'Cats--

Reynaud and I are playing a Samhain event in Salem MA, and we'd like to do a couple/three Samhain tunes along with all our traditional Celtic and American instrumentals. We've got Soulin' (A-Soalin'), but a search of the DT for "samhain" turned up only that, and a parody of That Old Time Religion.

Any suggestions?

Thanks in Advance--

V

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: Jayto
Date: 22 Oct 08 - 11:31 AM

OMG I would love to be at that gig. I had planned on being in Salem in Halloween this year but it has fallen through. Maybe I can catch you next year.
cya
JT

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: ClaireBear
Date: 22 Oct 08 - 12:10 PM

I've tried twice now to post this. Third time's the charm...

Two Mudcat threads to check. Both have links to tons of other threads at the top of the page:

Halloween songs

halloween songs

And two tune suggestions with folk arrangement possibilities and ties to creepy TV shows for popular appeal:

Gounod's "Funderal March for a Marionette"

That nifty tango that was the theme for PBS' "Mystery" for many years -- I don't know its provenance, but surely someone here does!

Sounds like great fun -- tell us all about it.

Cheers,
Claire

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 22 Oct 08 - 12:20 PM

Dance Macabre by Saint Saens?

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: Les in Chorlton
Date: 22 Oct 08 - 01:08 PM

It will take from now to next Halloween to read all the related threads and I doubt if you will find much in the way of any genuine evidence of songs or tunes in the English tradition that are related to Samhain and not much to Halloween.

Halloween seems to be a rag bag of folklore that has been endlessly re-invented not least as trick or treat.

But still, fun is fun?

L in C

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: Cats
Date: 22 Oct 08 - 01:13 PM

The Ballad of Tam Lin. It happens on 31st October. I did it at Tintagel a few years ago for visiting Americans and they loved it. You could also try Reynardine but sing the first verse with just the vowel sounds. Very eerie

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: Vixen
Date: 22 Oct 08 - 01:42 PM

Don't know why my post didn't show up either...

Thanks you much! Keep those ideas coming.

The event is: Samhain Feast

Should be an interesting night!

V

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 22 Oct 08 - 08:48 PM

I'm singing at a Hallowe'en event, and probably going to do I am stretched on your grave, and She moved through the fair - both kinda to do with reaching through the veils into the other world...

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: GUEST,Jack Campin
Date: 23 Oct 08 - 02:06 PM

I doubt there is so much as one couplet of text surviving from any pre-Christian Celtic pagan seasonal ritual and there are certainly no tunes.

Make it up. It's a festival of black and orange plastic anyway.

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: Cats
Date: 23 Oct 08 - 10:39 PM

Jack ~ For you it might be 'a festival of black and orange plastic', but for many people, including me and many 'Catters, it is far, far more than that.

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: GUEST,Sylvia
Date: 17 Jul 09 - 09:46 AM

Set to the classic tune of
Hall of the Mountain King or March of the Trolls by Edvard Grieg

On October thirty one when the sun comes to rest.
It's the night of Halloween when fun is at it's best.
In the hall of the mountain king lives a king a weird old thing. Imps and trolls surrounded him in his mountain home. Many trolls had three head even one sometimes two.

can't remember the rest of the lyrics

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: Wuzzle
Date: 17 Jul 09 - 07:31 PM

Although this is not traditional, you could try this one
'Forest Child'    and you could always give the proper pronunciation :0)   unlike me rhyming it with rain.

http://www.myspace.com/gillykemp   

Gilly

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: katlaughing
Date: 17 Jul 09 - 11:17 PM

Gilly, that is a beautiful song and your voice is gorgeous! Thanks so much for the link!

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: Wuzzle
Date: 18 Jul 09 - 02:40 PM

:0)

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Oct 14 - 12:24 PM

Autumn - Summer's End

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: GUEST,Rahere
Date: 28 Oct 14 - 05:07 PM

Maddie Prior's cornered the market in witches, of course. Alison Gross (recent news events apart, of course), Twelve Witches, Betsy Bell and Mary Gray.
The Bare Mountain is a counter melody to the Dies Irae, one of Rome's more fundamentalist pieces of music.
We also have the Devil's Interval, three whole tones, in a diatonic scale Subdominant to Leading-Note.

Subject: RE: Samhain Tunes/Songs
From: GUEST,AR
Date: 29 Oct 14 - 12:03 PM

Violet Jacob's poem 'Hallowe'en' has been set beautifully to music. I think in particular of a rendition by the late Jean Redpath.