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Visual Songs
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: John MacKenzie Date: 04 Nov 09 - 11:53 AM Sandwood Down to Kyle |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: SouthernCelt Date: 01 Feb 07 - 10:07 PM Relatively recent songs that do a lot for me visually are Slaid Cleaves' singing of "Breakfast in Hell" and "Quick as Dreams." SC |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: folk1e Date: 01 Feb 07 - 07:12 PM I am unsure whether this one counts but one of the strongest images I have is of Dave and Ged (Swinton folk club) doing the "actions" to Will you go lassie go? |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Georgiansilver Date: 01 Feb 07 - 06:53 PM The song that most does it for me is The Little Pot Stove. I can almost feel the cold and imagine the huddling..also experience the feelings mentioned...great song.:- Where the winter blizzards blow and the whaling fleet's at rest Tacked in Leith harbour's sheltered bay, safely anchored ten abreast There the whalemen at their stations, as ship to ship they rove Carry bags of coal with them, and a little iron stove. (Chorus) In that little dark engine room, where the chill seeps in your soul How we huddled round that little pot stove, that burned oily rags and coal. Fireman Paddy worked with me, on the engine frozen cold A stranger to the truth was he, there's not a lie he hasn't told Well he boasted of his goldmines, and of hearts that he had won And his bawdy sense of humour shone, just like a ray of sun. (Chorus) We lived it seven days a week, with cold hands and frozen feet Bitter days and lonely nights, making grog and having fights There's swordfish and whalemeat sausage, and fresh penguin egg's a treat Then we struggled off to work each day, through the icy winds and sleet. (Chorus) Then one day we saw the sun, we saw the factory ship return Met old friends and sang a song; hoped the journey wasn't long Then it's homeward bound and it's over, as we left that icy hole But I always will remember, that little iron stove. (Chorus) Repeat. |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Amos Date: 01 Feb 07 - 06:52 PM Teresa, how nice to see you posting again!! Welcome back. A |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Teresa Date: 01 Feb 07 - 06:31 PM I had to refresh this, because it's such an interesting discussion, like so many others here. I'm totally blind and always have been, yet I love visual lyrics. Two songs that come to mind for me are Henry Lawson's "Reedy river" which was set to music: Now still down Reedy River The grassy she-oaks sigh; The water holes still mirror The pictures in the sky; The golden sand is drifting Across the rocky bars; And over all for ever Go sun and moon and stars and Stan Rogers' "White Squall": I could feel her keeling over with the fury of the blow. I watched the rail go under then, so terrible and slow. Then, like some great dog she shook herself and roared upright again. Far overside. I heard him call my name. Too late for the original workshop, but I guess the virtual one continues. :) And all this because I was looking for the lyrics for "Wild Birds" and found them, too. Teresa |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: KathWestra Date: 19 Sep 02 - 04:27 PM Most of Joan Sprung's songs -- the ones she writes -- are very visual, and their appeal for me lies in the pictures they unfailingly paint. Must be a reason for the title song of her first Folk-Legacy recording, "Pictures to My Mind," which has the wonderful refrain:
Sing it one more time,
I particularly love the images in Joan's poignant "Harbors of Home," which I don't sing, but others do (wonderfully). Also "Where Have the Dancers Gone," which is one of my very favorite songs to sing. I've been performing it for 15 years or so, and never, ever get tired of the imagery:
Lines like: "dresses the colors of sunsets and fall/everyone stepping out graceful and tall" and "sweethearts whose feet never quite touched the floor/an old man whose partner was just three or four" really conjure up a picture of the old-time community dances Joan is trying to evoke.
My other personal favorites in the visual songs category are songs written by the late Jan Harmon. Her song "Loni," about a hiking trip in Yosemite National Park,is a shimmering poetic picture of HalfDome, Bridal Veil Falls, El Capitan, Tuolumne Meadows and other park landmarks. Gordon Bok has recorded that one; I never tire of singing it. Ditto for Jan's "Wild Birds," which is full of evocative images of Wyoming. You can just see the clouds of birds rising up in a flock from beside the road when you sing the chorus:
And all by the roadside the wild birds fly, So, Jerry, if you ever put together that workshop at NOMAD, you know my number! What a great idea for a workshop topic. Kathy |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Bert Date: 19 Sep 02 - 03:58 PM Gordon Lightfoot's A Song for a Winter's Night" does it for me. |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 19 Sep 02 - 05:57 AM Mike: Both great, moving songs. It's easy to understand why ballads are often so visual, because they often tell a story in vivid detail. I could come up with a long list of powerful ballads that I can see when I sing them, or hear them played. There are also many long ballads that are just long ballads for me... they may start someone else's projector going, but I'm just looking for a polite way to get out of the room.
Then, there are 0ther songs that have a vivid description in them... like John Johanna:
"I pulled in to the station, I chanced to meet a friend
Allan Catcher was his name, although they called him Cain
His Hair hung down in rat-tails below his under jaw
He said he run the best hotel in the State of Arkansas
and:
He stood seven feet six inches, as tall as any crane
It's early in the morning and it's been awhile since I sung that song, so I'm not sure how these lines fit into the song, but I guess that's the point. These are the lines in the song that create such a strong image of a character in my mind.
And Kat: I'm not sure that instrumentals generate visual images for me, although they certainly create emotions. I'll have to think about that... hmmmnnn.. maybe 40 Miles of Bad Road by Duane Eddy. :-) Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: BlueSage Date: 19 Sep 02 - 01:06 AM Two songs about actual mining disasters come to mind: Ballad of Springhill (Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger) Twelve men lay two miles from the pit shaft Twelve men lay in the dark and sang Long, hot days in the miner's tomb It was three feet high and a hundred long.... -and- The Schofield Mine Disaster (Bruce Phillips) When we gathered at the site We thought that just a few had died Fought our way in past the mine head carried out two hundred dead When we brought them to the light It was a black and awful sight In one family there were nine lost within that burning mine Can't you see that funeral train Oh can't you see that funeral train Rolling down that lonesome valley It's the longest one I've seen... I can't sing either song without the imagery getting me teary-eyed.... Mike |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: katlaughing Date: 19 Sep 02 - 12:21 AM Just curious, does anyone else visual to instrumental? |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: DonMeixner Date: 19 Sep 02 - 12:01 AM Jed Marum's "Prayer From Little Round Top" Archie Fisher's "Witch of the West-Mer-Land" Stan Roger's " The Wreck of The Athens Queen" Andrew Barton Paterson's poems "Lost" and "In the Drovin' Days" All bring movies to my eyes. Don |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 18 Sep 02 - 11:34 PM Good songs, all... Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Mudlark Date: 18 Sep 02 - 11:31 PM Jerry...I love folk songs for their imagry, even from 2-300 years ago the images are clear and compelling. Mary Hamilton comes to mind:
Cast off, cast off, my gown she said but let my petticoat be
And it will come to pass on a May morning
And Kate Wolff's "rolling, golden hills of Calfornia" |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Night Owl Date: 18 Sep 02 - 11:18 PM Most Bill Staines' lyrics create visual pictures for me....even when I have to look up a word he's using.
A line from a song he wrote called "Border Blues": "Obsidian".....a dark natural glass formed by the cooling of molten lava. |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: greg stephens Date: 18 Sep 02 - 06:24 PM yes, I can just see Jerry doing that with the old Gospel group. Go down a bomb at Sunday services. |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: CraigS Date: 18 Sep 02 - 05:49 PM What about songs with actions ... Swing Low Sweet Chariot etc.? |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 18 Sep 02 - 12:33 PM Good quote from Peggy, Dave. Merle Haggard did an album titled Sing Me Back Home, and he did just that. Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Uncle_DaveO Date: 18 Sep 02 - 12:28 PM The classic Scottish ballads always seem very visual to me. Exhibit A is the one variously called "Long Lankin", "Long Lambkin" and other variants, where the vengeful Lankin, with the aid of the false nurse, murders the absent lord's wife and child. Peggy Seeger, asked in a class why she so often sings with her eyes closed, said something like, "I want to watch the movie." Dave Oesterreich |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Mark Ross Date: 18 Sep 02 - 12:22 PM Woody's TOM JOAD TENNESSEE STUD |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: GUEST,Les B. Date: 18 Sep 02 - 12:19 PM From Billy Ed Wheeler's "Coal Tatoo" - "...and this blue tatoo on the side of my head, left by the number 9 coal.." |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 17 Sep 02 - 04:11 PM All good choices, Amos! Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Amos Date: 17 Sep 02 - 02:27 PM Nightrider's Lament comes immediately to mind: As I was riding the graveyard shift, from midnight to dawn, The moon was as bright as a reading light, For a letter from an old friend back home... Older songs also come to mind -- Rebel Soldier, High Barbary, Greenland Fisheries....The Jackets Green...RIsing of the Moon. It's a piece of the art, innit? A |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Ebbie Date: 17 Sep 02 - 02:02 PM Waaaaahhhhh, kat. My JP CD hasn't come yet and unless it comes today I'll have to wait maybe a month. I'm heading south to Oregon in the morning for a few weeks. Ah, well, I'll be looking forward to having it when I come back... |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 17 Sep 02 - 07:59 AM That does it for me, Greg. A very chilling image, with emotions thrown in, in case someone is vision-impaired. Jerry |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: greg stephens Date: 17 Sep 02 - 04:41 AM Well I had a little think as instructed, Jerry, ad what popped into my head was a verse out of the Flying Cloud. The plague it came and fever too It killed them off like flies We piled their bodies on the deck And hove them o'er the side For sure the dead were lucky then They'd have to weep no more Nor drag the chain or feel the lash In Cuba for evermore. Not sure what you're looking for, but that verse and image were what came to me. |
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Subject: RE: Visual Songs From: katlaughing Date: 17 Sep 02 - 03:58 AM No words necessary on this one, Jerry: one power-packed tune, Justa Picker's own Nazareth Pilgrim Blues with him on a couple of Martin's and Rick Fielding on dobro and mandolin. I get a whole video going, complete and in colour, vivid colour! It's on his new CD. kat |
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Subject: Visual Songs From: Jerry Rasmussen Date: 17 Sep 02 - 02:37 AM In thinking about interesting ideas for workshops the idea came to me of doing one called Visual Songs. One of the things that I've always been attracted to in folk music is the visual imagery that many songs evoke. The songs are soundtracks for a movie in my head. Some of my favorite folk songs that do this, as examples, are The Jam On Gerry's Rock and The 1913 Massacre. They have a powerful, "you are there" impact on me when I sing them. There are phrases that are very visual to me: "Where are the men who can find their contentment in a living room waltz or a walk by the sea." Songs are really an amazing creation. A novelist can take four hundred pages to paint a picture and tell a story. Even a short story allows plenty of room. A song often has only five or six verses. Sometimes only two or three.
So, think about it for a minute and if there's a song that comes to mind that you see as well as hear, I'd like to hear about it. I'm not looking for lists here, although just mentioning a title is o.k. But, if there are any particular images in the song that are created in your mind, tell me about them. Jerry |
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