Lyr Add: Great Gulf Wind (Sonny Landreth)

Subject: Lyr Add: GREAT GULF WIND (Sonny Landreth)
From: michaelr
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 01:50 PM

I'm trying to adapt the following song to fit into my band's Scots/Irish repertoire. What I need is to find substitutes to the words (in the chorus) "Delta" (refers to Mississippi) and "Gulf" (of Mexico). So, in a "Celtic" context, what would be a two-syllable descriptor for the moon, and a one-syllable descriptor for wind?

Any suggestions?


Great Gulf Wind    (Sonny Landreth)

Night walk alone
Through markers of stone
After the loss that had deepened
When something caught my eye:
Words on a shrine
Full moon aglow, I could read them

CH:   The Delta moon is a lantern over you
      Like a porch light hung in forever
      It will be left on `cos we're always going home
      And we'll meet up again on a great Gulf wind
      We will meet up again on a great Gulf wind   

Over I read
With a whisper in my head
It hit me like a chill I was meant to have
Waiting for me there
To comfort and to share
The meaning I found in this epitaph    (CH)

Back through the gates
I left that restful place
Taking with me a new peace of mind
So when the loss is profound
For those no longer around
I just remember to look up at night    (CH)

(From the CD "South of I-10", Zoo Records, 1995)


Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 02:03 PM

Shining
West

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 02:06 PM

I'm generally rather dubious about messing with modern songs ("Belfast" Mill, for example, has caused more than its share of confusion!) but if you really don't want to keep the original terms, you could do worse than "Hunter's Moon" and "great Sea Wind" or perhaps "North Sea Wind". We live in small countries over here, and anything more localised might risk sounding parochial as compared to the original, while anything more "celto-specific" would risk sounding out-of-place in the rest of the song.

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: michaelr
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 02:14 PM

That's exactly my dilemma, Malcolm. I like your suggestion of "North Sea Wind", and have also thought of Guest's suggested "West" (sorry, "shining" is a bit pedestrian), but what do you mean by "Hunter's Moon"? And to what song does "Belfast Mill' refer?

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: michaelr
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 02:51 PM

Well, I answered my own question re: hunter's moon. Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable defines it as "the month or moon following the 'harvest moon' (i.e. autumn equinox). Hunting does not begin until after harvest."

I'd still like to know more about "Belfast Mill", though!

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: mg
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 02:58 PM

yes. Leave it alone. mg

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: michaelr
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 03:02 PM

My, that's helpful, mg!

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 03:16 PM

Some Irish band (I forget who) recorded American writer Si Khan's Aragon Mill as Belfast Mill, and now the world is full of people who think it's both traditional and Irish. (See various past discussions on the subject).

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 08:27 PM

"Crescent"/"Hunter's"/"Harvest"/"Quarter"...................Moon
"North"/"South"/"East"/West"/ ..............Wind

Nigel

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: Strupag
Date: 27 Jan 03 - 11:07 AM

Honest Michealr,
I wouldn't change a word.It's a really nice song
Most Scots and Irish bands will tackle a song from any continent and play it in their own style.
I think the original songwriter probably took some time to think of the expresions, Delta moon and Gulf winds.
Think of The Lakes of Potentrain(spelling?) as sung by many Irish performers.
You know, us celts have travelled quite a bit.

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: Declan
Date: 27 Jan 03 - 11:35 AM

I think I'm with the sing it like it is contingent on this one.

Andy Irvine sang and probably recorded Aragon Mill in its original form, and they don't come more Celtic than Andy ;-) I never understood the need to change it to Belfast, although whoever did it probably thought that it would appeal more to Irish audiences if it was 'localised'.

I don't know the song, but it looks interesting. I think you could make it fit in (if you think that's necessary) with the other celtic material by adapting the music rather than the lyrics.

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: pattyClink
Date: 27 Jan 03 - 11:49 AM

Well, what if every Gulf Coaster who felt like it started singing things like:

"No, 'twas the truth in her eyes ever shining,
that made me love Mary, the Rose of Capri."

There is such a thing as 'a sense of place' and it is important to authors and lyricists. Leave it alone. If you want songs shoehorned into your repertoire's special needs, write yer own.

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: michaelr
Date: 27 Jan 03 - 08:23 PM

Thanks for your input, everyone. My thinking is that the emotion expressed in the song is a fairly general one, so that changing a couple of location-specific words would not subvert the songwriter's intent too much. But since most of you feel that it's a bad idea, I'll think on it some more...

Cheers,
Michael

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: Bullfrog Jones
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 10:21 AM

Hi Michael -- to help the thinking process check out this thread.

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: michaelr
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 07:48 PM

Thanks for that, BJ... seems most posters agree that it's OK to change stuff a bit.

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 08:53 PM

Agreed - why change it?

The Lakes of Pontchartrain didn't have to become the Lakes of Killarney for everyone to accept that as being quite as Irish as any song needs to be. I'm sure there are plenty of Irish out in the Delta and the Gulf.

It isn't the names that matter, it's the way its played and sung..

If you had to change the moon you'd as well go for "silver", and "a sailing wind". But if I was in the band I'd be againsat chnagingthe words that way.

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: mg
Date: 28 Jan 03 - 11:41 PM

yeah..how about the Yellow Rose of Holland?
The Galway Bay Blues?
Way down upon the Liffy River
carry me back to old Lichenstein
The Sidewalks of El Paso
The Blue Mississippi Waltz
I miss my French my French miss misses me
Here we are in Buffalo shearing sheep as big as whales

Subject: Lyr Add: IF WE ONLY HAD OLD IRELAND OVER HERE
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 04:52 AM

IF WE ONLY HAD OLD IRELAND OVER HERE

I was dreamin' of old Ireland and Killarneys lakes and dells
I was dreamin' of the shamrock, and the dear old Shandon Bells
When my reverie suggested in a vision bright and clear
All the strange things that would happen
If we had old Ireland here

If the Blarney stone stood out on Sidney Harbour
And Dublin Town in Melbourne came to stay
If the Shannon River joined the Brisbane Waters
And Killarneys lakes flowed into Botany Bay
If the Shandons Bells rang out in old Fremantle
And County Cork in Adelaide did appear
Erin's sons would never roam, all the boys would stay at home
If we only had old Ireland over here

There were lots of lovely fairies dancing on the village green
There were lots of lovely coleens, the finest ever seen
And the boys were all called Paddy
And the girls called Molly Dear
Sure we'd wrap the green flag round them
If we had old Ireland here

If the Blarney Stone stood out on Sidney Harbour
And Dublin Town in Melbourne came to stay
If the Shannon River joined the Brisbane Waters
And Killarneys lakes flowed into Botany Bay
If the Shandons Bells rang out in Old Fremantle
And County Cork in Adelaide did appear
Erin's sons would never roam, all the boys would stay at home
If we only had old Ireland over here
If we only had old Ireland over here

(lifted from this site)

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: Strupag
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 04:40 PM

I've been tae SanFrancisco but I saw nea Golden Gate
An that great wall in China, I thought wis nothin great,
'Ave been tae Holliwood but saw nae Holly Tree
An that famous tower in Piza looked near fa'in doon tae me
That famous square in Moscow wisnie really red
An' the black north of Ireland, I found wis green instead
But of a' these wonderous sights, the one for which I dream,
Is oor Morag milkin' Kirstie, oor wee coo in Achnaseen

An she pull away so nimbly, like a barmaid pouring ale,
An the milk splutters oot intae a white enamel pail.
Got no hessitation or shudders - just consideration for udders
That's the sight I like to see in Achnasheen!

God and there's more!

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: Spartacus
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 05:42 PM

Michael.....
    DO WHAT EVER YOU WANT TO DO! Ever heard of "windjammers"? It's a book of great lakes sailing songs. Do you know what most of them are? Old english/western/irish songs with the major cities and port names changed. The exact thing you're trying to do has been going on for hundreds of years. Don't let anyone tell you that you shouldn't/cant localize an old song. That's part of the beauty of folk/labor music - it's history is always being traced and retraced from one place to another where it was altered to suit the needs of the singer. Being a Michiganer, I might be against "Cleveland Rock City"...but I'm not much of a Kiss fan anyway... I think you have the right idea - do what feels good to you.

-Spartacus

Subject: RE: Need help with lyrics, please
From: GUEST,Chicken Charlie
Date: 29 Jan 03 - 06:09 PM

I see both sides here. I think what you want to do, Michael, is perfectly all right, but I love Mary Garvey's titles. As to people thinking a re-write is the original thing, that might be mildly regrettable, but I believe it would qualify as a "victimless crime."

If "Streets of Laredo" can start out in a London paupers' hospital and become a cowboy song from therea, then what Michael is doing would seem to just be part of the folk tradition itself. The issue of "doing it the right way" has been discussed on many other threads; IMO the essence of folk is that there is no one right way. If there were, the world would be without John Hartford's "Lorena," because that's not note-for-note how Joe Webster would have done it.

Nonetheless, the Song Police continue to parade. That's why we have jokes like "It takes four mandolin players to change a light bulb; one to change it and three to talk about how Bill Monroe wouldn't have done it that way." etc., etc., etc.

CC