The road to...

Subject: The road to...
From: Mo the caller
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 10:03 AM

I wonder how many people have gone on musical mystery tours chasing their favourite song, tune or dance.
A friend went to the valley mentioned in The Meeting of the Waters and was disappointed that it wasn't as beautiful as she had imagined. (Though the song says it was the romantic associations not the scenery that mattered).
On our first trip to the Willie Clancy festival we planned our routes to stand on the Bridge of Athlone, go All the way to Galway and take the Road to Lisdoonvarna. I was impressed by the faded glories of what looked like a Spa town

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 10:30 AM

It happened the other way round for me.

I heard Mairtin O’Connor introduce and play “The Road West” which describes perfectly the road into Clifden across the wilds of Connemara.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Joe Offer
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 11:35 AM

I had to find a pier in Halifax and imagine I was the last of Barratt's Privateers. And the same day, I went to the Town of Spring Hill, Nova Scotia. And the day before, I came across the Bluenose (II) in Lunenburg.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Charmion
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 11:50 AM

Ha ha, Joe; I bet you found yourself among the tourist traps at the foot of Duke Street.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 01:34 PM

Must go to Mandalay some time...

For Liverpool fans, the East Lancs Road takes you to Nirvana as long as you go west along the road (see what I did there?), but to misery if you head in the incorrect direction. I wouldn't recommend the road to Wigan Pier either. The Road to the Isles is well worth the trip, though. Great tune too!

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: AnMal
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 01:45 PM

When i went to Scotland for the second time back in the early 00:s (-01? or 02? I'm so old now it all gets a bit dim) I made this the theme of my trip. I walked up and down Cannogate in Edinburgh like all other tourists, but I did it with a feeling of going to my doom like Mary Hamilton in the ballad of the three Maries, which made it sort of special. I ended up in Falkirk where I just enjoyed strolling around even if the town is probably nothing special really (and it was before those magnificent kelpies! I'd love to see them) because of a Strathspey I like called 'The battle of Falkirk'. Then I managed a visit to Roslin before it was forever turned into a major sonspiracy tourist trap thanks to 'The DaVinci Code', because I love 'Roslin Castle'. I didn't feel disappointed at any part of my journey except for when I had to go home - but then I didn't expect anything in particular before I went, just wanted to see what the places were like for real.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Jack Campin
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 05:11 PM

There are two Meeting of the Waters pieces - the Scottish march commemorates a 19th century flood in Aberdeenshire when two rivers rose over a low watershed.

I looked up the Mouth of the Tobique (after a dramatically syncopated Canadian contra reel) on Google. It might be interesting if you're a waterfowl.

I live about a mile from Cockpen. The Laird of Cockpen's house was demolished as was most of Cockpen church. But the church ruins and the folly built with stones from the house still survive. Someday I will video myself playing the tune in one or the other.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 06:53 PM

Grand tune, the Mouth of the Tobique, though a gob-twister on the harmonica :-) Take the trip to Durrow. Lovely tune, dunno about Durrow! Maybe I'll take the road over the moor to Maggie instead...

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: RTim
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 07:33 PM

Lisdoonvarna.

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 08:55 PM

Lisdoon, Lisdoon, Lisdoonvarna...

Anyone for the last few choc ices now...?

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: leeneia
Date: 14 Dec 20 - 11:17 PM

I play a delightful song called Road to Cork which I found in Reilly's Flute Tunes (1812-1814). On a trip to Ireland we took a road to Cork (nice town) and we have a photograph of a box truck carrying Kit Kats crossing the river and heading into town.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Jack Campin
Date: 15 Dec 20 - 06:53 AM

Or you could specialize in musical trains. I thought I'd found the funicular of "Funiculi, Funicula" in Naples but I was wrong - it was miles away, up Vesuvius. I wonder if the Odessa train of the klezmer tune "7.40" still runs? How about the Chattanooga Choo-Choo or the "City of Chicago"?

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Mo the caller
Date: 15 Dec 20 - 07:17 AM

Some time after my trip there I discovered why people took the Road to Lisdoonvarna. Google tells me there was a matchmaking festival there, after harvest. Which I suppose would make it a cousin of the Rutherford tune from 1756 Bath Assembly

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Dec 20 - 07:51 AM

Cork is a city

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: G-Force
Date: 15 Dec 20 - 08:01 AM

When we were in Ireland we made a point of going to Athenry. 'Disappointing' just about sums it up, though it did have a cafe called 'Fields'.

Likewise in Scotland we went to Kelso because we play a tune called 'Kelso Accordian & Fiddle Club'. Nice town, but it was summer and the club wasn't running.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 15 Dec 20 - 08:18 AM

I sang "Banks of the Ohio" while standing on the bank of the Ohio, much to my wife's embarrassment. I didn't go there specially to do that. We just happened to be there, so the song had to be sung.

It was pretty much the same when, very early one morning, we took a breakfast break on the banks of Loch Lomond on our way north to Inverness. To be fair, on that occasion, I didn't know all the words so I sang the chorus twice.

DC

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Dec 20 - 03:19 PM

i have played the Humours of Ballydehob in Ballydehob many times. The humours ofDrinagh is a good tune and i have played the tune there but the town is rather drab, the main thing to remember about Drinagh is that there is a very officious power crazy Garda.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: The Sandman
Date: 15 Dec 20 - 03:38 PM

I sang dity old town in salford, loch lomnd on the banks of loch lomond. and i sang neidin in kenmare
s I leave behind Neidin
It's like purple splashed on green
My soul is strangely fed
Through the winding hills ahead
And she plays a melody
On wind and streams for me
Won't you remember?
Won't you remember?
Won't you remember me?
And we wind and climb and fall
Like the greatest waltz of all
Float across the floor
Her sweet breath outside the door
And it's time that I was gone
Cross the silver tear
Won't you remember?
Won't you remember?
Won't you remember me?
Won't you remember?
Won't you remember?
Won't you remember me?
As I leave behind Neidin
In the hall where we have been
Rhododendrons in your hair
In the mountain scented air
I still feel her spirit song
Cross the silver tear
Won't you remember?
Won't you remember?
Won't you remember me?
Won't you remember?
Won't you remember?
Won't you remember me?
I leave behind Neidin

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: cnd
Date: 15 Dec 20 - 11:35 PM

Not exactly in a "folk" vein, but when my iPod put on the Doobie Brothers' "Take Me In Your Arms" as I touched down at a small airport in rural Idaho/Utah (can't remember anymore), the imagery from the album cover (Stampede) and the rocky scenes at the airport coincided perfectly. I don't think I've ever had a song fit a situation I was in better.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 16 Dec 20 - 04:34 AM

Not many people realise that Rawtenstall gas works moved location, so "down behind the gasworks" could be considered ambiguous apart from the idea of which is the front and which is the back (Rawtenstall annual fair).

Robin

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Dec 20 - 05:23 AM

i hve sung the banks of the lee by the banks of the lee, but i have yet to sing on top of old smokey on top of old smokey or sitting on top of the world on top of a globe although that would be a good wheeze at a gig

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: GerryM
Date: 16 Dec 20 - 06:46 AM

You probably haven't sung Fly Me To The Moon while being flown to the Moon, either, Sandman.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Jos
Date: 16 Dec 20 - 07:02 AM

When we were children we had some 78 rpm records with songs for children's birthdays. The best one was a song about a runaway bus, 'The bus that wouldn't go home', about a bus on a joyride through south-east England, with lines like 'Through Highgate and Reigate, and then he passed MY gate'.
Over the years, I have been to quite a few of the places mentioned.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: The Sandman
Date: 16 Dec 20 - 01:18 PM

fly me to the mmon is not of the genre of music that i generally sing, neither have i any desire to go to the moon. in fact if governments had spent the amount of money on their respective health services instead of tomfoolery project like going to the moon, the world would be a better place

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Jack Campin
Date: 16 Dec 20 - 05:58 PM

One of the Glasgow Fiddle Workshop people wrote a tune for a trip they made together, called The Road to Eigg.

They then realized a better name was Eigg Bound.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 16 Dec 20 - 06:52 PM

Rum title, that, Jack...

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: GUEST,Andymac
Date: 17 Dec 20 - 05:53 AM

I have often meant to travel the A83 again while singing the song of the same name. Then there will be a wee detour to the Road to Drumlennan.

But I recall driving along some Aberdeenshire back roads about ten years ago and every road sign seemed to be a song title...

Andymac

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Jos
Date: 17 Dec 20 - 06:17 AM

And then there's the Wurzels' "Rock Around the A38".

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Vic Smith
Date: 17 Dec 20 - 06:57 AM

I was always taken by the Battlefield Band's tune Return To Kashmagiro but I could never get the proper feel to it, but then I was never unemployed.....

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Dec 20 - 09:15 AM

Then there's Return to Kintail by Alasdair Fraser & Tony McManus. A stunningly great album in m'humble...

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: cnd
Date: 17 Dec 20 - 11:32 AM

I totally forgot a thread I posted in earlier this year: French Broad

The French Broad is a river that runs through the southwestern section of North Carolina, in many of the most remote and rural parts. The song "French Broad" exists as both a sacred harp song and a folk song; both fit the river's ambiance well.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Mo the caller
Date: 18 Dec 20 - 01:03 PM

I looked at that thread, is it just the tune that was different in the folk song (I think it was posted as chords not melody)

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 20 Dec 20 - 04:01 AM

Pretty sure that the last time I was in Australia I was on 'The Road to Gundagai'. I was certainly on 'The Road to Washington' when I first set off to Appalachia from New York on a Greyhound bus.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 20 Dec 20 - 04:49 AM

N17 (stone walls and the grass is green)

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 20 Dec 20 - 05:16 AM

Forgot to say that once, when I was in Thailand, I trekked up to the Myanmar border but didn't actually enter Myanmar. So, I never managed to get 'On the Road to Mandalay'.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Jack Campin
Date: 20 Dec 20 - 06:28 AM

I have been through Taumaranui on the Main Trunk Line a few times.

Been to Dundee from several different directions so I must have done The Road and the Miles to Dundee.

I have only been along the Old Kent Road on a bus (and on the Monopoly board) so I didn't get the chance to knock 'em.

London streets must be well covered by songs but I don't know of any attempt to compile them.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 20 Dec 20 - 06:41 AM

Funny, I was just thinking about the 'The Road and the Miles to Dundee', but you got there before me, Jack. I've also travelled on 'The Road to the Iles'. But is there a song of that title?

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 20 Dec 20 - 06:43 AM

Thinking about it, yes there is a song - but it is 'The Road to the ISLES'. Never could spell!

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: GerryM
Date: 20 Dec 20 - 06:58 AM

I have been on a long and winding road, but it didn't lead to your door.

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Vic Smith
Date: 20 Dec 20 - 07:22 AM

I've been on The road to Drumleman that winds tae the sea

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Dec 20 - 08:46 AM

I thought I was heading over the moor to Maggie, but I found myself going over the bog road instead...

Subject: RE: The road to...
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 21 Dec 20 - 04:06 PM

Every time I see the thread title I think of 'the road to god knows where'.