Origins: Puzzle:Edmund Fitzgerald and Bobby Sands

Subject: RE: Origins: Puzzle:Edmund Fitzgerald and Bobby Sands
From: Noreen
Date: 11 Nov 15 - 07:09 PM

Following quote, apparently from Gordon Lightfoot, about the writing of the Ed Fitz and where the tune came from:

Topical songs, you know... are very difficult to come by. Every once in a while. And the Edmund Fitzgerald really seemed to go unnoticed at that time, anything I'd seen in the newspapers or magazines were very short, brief articles, and I felt I would like to expand upon the story of the sinking of the ship itself. And it was quite an undertaking to do that, I went and bought all of the old newspapers, got everything in chronological order, and went ahead and did it because i already had a melody in my mind and it was from an old Irish dirge that I heard when I was about 3 and a half years old. I think it was one of the first pieces of music that registered to me as being a piece of music. That's where the melody comes from, from an old Irish folk song.

"That's where the melody comes from, from an old Irish folk song"

Subject: RE: Origins: Puzzle:Edmund Fitzgerald and Bobby Sands
From: Noreen
Date: 11 Nov 15 - 07:20 PM

In his book "One Voice: My life in Song" Christy writes that he first came across the song when "I was staying in a house in Derry after an H-block concert and a young lad recently released sang this song..."
from here


Summary, as I see it:

GF wrote the W of the EF to a remembered melody which he says was an old Irish folk song.
Bobby Sands wrote BH in D to (basically) the same tune- probably after hearing GL's melody. CM heard it sung complete and popularised it.

Subject: RE: Origins: Puzzle:Edmund Fitzgerald and Bobby Sands
From: Amos
Date: 11 Nov 15 - 10:41 PM

The consensus appears to be that Sand's "Derry" used the tune of Lightfoot's "Wreck", not the other way 'round.

The question of earlier antecedents of the tune from which Gordon Lightfoot may have drawn his tune for "Wreck" remain unanswered; it was speculative on my part, but I still harbor a strong suspicion that such a tune must have existed in the nineteenth or possibly even the eighteenth century, based simply on the melodic pattern of it. In any case, it appears so far that Lightfoot is the modern contributor of it.

Many many thanks to all of you who have spoken up from one corner of the forest or another. This is the true richness of this wunnerful forum made manifest.

A

Subject: RE: Origins: Puzzle:Edmund Fitzgerald and Bobby Sands
From: Amos
Date: 11 Nov 15 - 10:46 PM

Whoops! I spoke prematurely. One of the links in this thread actually goes to a forum where Gordon Lightfoot took questions from the audience, and in the course of that thread he says concerning the "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald":

"Topical songs, you know... are very difficult to come by. Every once in a while. And the Edmund Fitzgerald really seemed to go unnoticed at that time, anything I'd seen in the newspapers or magazines were very short, brief articles, and I felt I would like to expand upon the story of the sinking of the ship itself. And it was quite an undertaking to do that, I went and bought all of the old newspapers, got everything in chronological order, and went ahead and did it because i already had a melody in my mind and it was from an old Irish dirge that I heard when I was about 3 and a half years old. I think it was one of the first pieces of music that registered to me as being a piece of music. That's where the melody comes from, from an old Irish folk song."

The thread in which he says this is on this page.

Subject: RE: Origins: Puzzle:Edmund Fitzgerald and Bobby Sands
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 30 Aug 16 - 12:07 AM

I looked up the North Country Blues, sort of does sound like Wreck/Derry. I also found a post mentioning that NCB and an Australian folk song called "The Miner" shared melodies. I looked that one up as well, though to me it sounds more along the lines of Spancil Hill. Though SH could probably be sung to the tune of Wreck/Derry too.
TM seems to have been collected as early as the late 1950's, so that's quite some time before Wreck/Derry.
Here's the thread thing mentioning The Miner, along with NCB and Wreck:
http://rec.music.dylan.narkive.com/cVrRwRxJ/north-country-blues-the-wreck-of-the-edmund-fitzgerald

Subject: RE: Origins: Puzzle:Edmund Fitzgerald and Bobby Sands
From: Daniel Kelly
Date: 02 Dec 18 - 04:31 AM

With the help of Tunepal and whistling the song in about ten times, I found Tatter Jack Walsh, and am reasonably confident that this was the 'old Irish tune' that Gordon (and Bobby) probably based their songs on.

Tatter Jack Walsh

Subject: RE: Origins: Puzzle:Edmund Fitzgerald and Bobby Sands
From: meself
Date: 02 Dec 18 - 11:10 AM

I don't know - at a quick listen, I don't hear much more correspondence in this tune than you would hear in a number of such modal tunes - my own vote is for Road to Lisdoonvarna.