Origins: When My Love and I Parted

Subject: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: GUEST,Chris
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 08:59 PM

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 09:06 PM

Common to several songs. More data please.

?When My love and I parted, the wind blew cold,
When my love and I parted my love untold ....

Enter title in google and you can find this one; supposedly Celtic. Or this link-
www.geocities.com/celticlyricscorner/solas/thehour.htm#when

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: GUEST,Chris
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 10:22 PM

Oops--I messed that up. Seems I didn't include my message properly.
This is the title of an Irish song, I believe. I'm looking for a song of this title.
Thanks! Chris

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 26 Jul 05 - 12:13 AM

If it's the one Q indicated, it can be found quite easily via the usual search engines (and here in the Forum, too). The words were written by George Coleman for the 1791 opera The Surrender of Calais. The tune had appeared earlier, with a different lyric (Farewell Ye Groves), in William Shield and John O'Keefe's The Poor Prisoner (1783).

The tune was either written by Shield in the fashionable "Stage Irish" style of the day, or was a genuine Irish tune; possibly got from O'Keeffe (playwright and librettist), who was Irish by birth. Although various sources suggest that Shield "transcribed" the tune from him, none offer any evidence; so wishful thinking seems a distinct possibility. As so often, one person's mere speculation is later repeated, unchecked, as "fact". Mind you, cognate tunes do seem to have turned up in Ireland (though rather later) so the question is open.

See various past discussions here. Savourneen Deelish, Eileen Oge has useful links to further information. If that is the song you were looking for, then it can't really be called "Celtic"; it appears to be an English theatre song written to a tune that either was Irish or intended to sound Irish to an English (and Irish) audience.

Of course, you may have meant something else entirely. Do you not know anything at all about it apart from the title?

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 Jul 05 - 12:37 AM

Not in Sam Henry.
Not in Traditional Ballad Index.

The lines I entered above are for a Celtic song with the title you gave. Not the one? Did you look at the geocities address I gave above?
I will post the words from that site but without help on the burden of the song, I don't know if it is the right one.

WHEN MY LOVE AND I PARTED

When my love and I parted, the wind blew cold
When my love and I parted, our love untold
Though my heart was crying, "Love, come with me
I turned my face from his and sought the sea.

When my love and I parted, we shed no tears
For we knew that between us lay weary years
A bird was singing on a tree
And a gleam of sunlight lay on the sea.

Parting is bitter and weeping, vain
But all true lovers will meet again
For no fate can sever my love from me
For his heart is a river and mine, the sea.

I presume that this is a piece played by the band, "Solas."

When My Love

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 26 Jul 05 - 12:53 AM

Well, I seem to have suffered a brainstorm in confusing those two. What was I thinking of? The Solas song appears to be a modern composition. I wonder which, if either, was wanted?

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Oct 06 - 01:34 PM

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 03:56 PM

I learned this little song from a recording made by Charlie Herron, Glenfinn, County Donegal, Ireland, an avid collector of songs, made many years ago, at some singing session or other, and I included it in a cassette "Easter Snow" which I made in 1997; cassette kindly promoted and distributed by John Moulden, Ulster Singers, at that time, song has been recorded since then by "Solas" and perhaps others.
Rita Gallagher

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: Noreen
Date: 21 Jan 09 - 06:18 PM

Ah! And I heard it on a tape of yours, 35 years ago, Rita!

Wonder where Charlie got it from...

Lovely song- always moves (often to tears) at least one person enough to ask me about it, whenever I sing it.

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: Willa
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 07:23 AM

I have tried to find out more about this beautiful song through the usual sources, without success. (When my love and I parted the wind blew cold)

I heard it on a Mary O'Hara cd, where it was described as a traditional Irish song, but with no further details.

Hope this reopened thread brings up more info.

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: Willa
Date: 22 Jan 09 - 07:47 AM

I couldn't open the geocities link that Q gave, but have listened to the sample from the Solas 'Hour before Dawn' CD, which is the version I sing. Does anyone have the CD and if so, do the liner notes give any more information about the writer/tune?

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 02:00 PM

Unfortunately, I don't know where Charlie recorded this, or from whom, and he is now long deceased. His daughter was to try "sift" through the store of reel-to-reel/cassette recordings he made, to see if he had indexed them, but no progress so far! Rita

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: Willa
Date: 10 Feb 09 - 09:40 AM

Thanks, Rita

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: GUEST,Rita
Date: 29 Dec 09 - 05:09 PM

This song is on a Mary O'Hara cd "Mary O'Hara, 40 Traditional Songs", released March 2007, entitled "The Parting"

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 30 Dec 09 - 09:50 AM

The song can be heard here. I think it would be rather easy to transcribe it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY37ufBVNUM

Subject: RE: Origins: When My Love and I Parted
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Jul 20 - 09:58 AM

im so grateful to Mudcat for this page. i have a fragment of this song in my late mothers archive - Sandra Goddard.
she had only transcribed two verses and i was at a loss to the rest of the song.

i am organising her folk archive and song records (many hundreds) at www.wuntbedruv.com

best wishes, jo goddard