Lyr Req: American aisling?

Subject: Lyr Req: American aisling?
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 12 Aug 06 - 03:57 AM

Is there any song that anyone can think about in the American traditions that is equivalent to the Irish aisling?

In other words, is there a song that appears to be a love song, but is in fact a political song?

I can think of some songs - like Follow the Drinking Gourd, for instance - that appear to be religious but are coded instructions to slaves for escape to freedom.

But is there any love song that's a coded call for freedom in the same way?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: American aisling?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 12 Aug 06 - 03:15 PM

GUEST, JTT, I don't know the answer to your question.

But you said, I can think of some songs - like Follow the Drinking Gourd, for instance - that appear to be religious but are coded instructions to slaves for escape to freedom.

And I have to commment.

I don't think I have ever heard anyone suggest that Follow the Drinking Gourd is or was a religious song, and it doesn't strike me that way, even when trying to see how it could fit that mould.   To my way of thinking, and as I've always heard referred to, it was what might be called a "political" song, a "freedom" song.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: American aisling?
From: Peace
Date: 12 Aug 06 - 03:25 PM

I occasionally felt that Dylan's "It Ain't Me Babe" was wriiten about the American draft. But only occasionally.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: American aisling?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 13 Aug 06 - 03:50 AM

Where did you get the word ' aisling ' from, it's not in my dictionary, and google returns zero.

eric

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: American aisling?
From: GUEST,Blkavk Tom
Date: 13 Aug 06 - 04:00 AM

Aisling is a Gaelic word.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: American aisling?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 13 Aug 06 - 04:02 AM

OK but what does it mean ?

eric

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: American aisling?
From: Seán Báite
Date: 13 Aug 06 - 04:22 AM

It means 'vision' (as in a portentous/prophetic dream).
In this context it means a type of poem/song in which the
narrator recounts a dream in which he meets (usually) a
beautiful woman - who turns out to be a symbol of Ireland and her plight. It was a device most probably invented to avoid being hung for sedition. (I reckon the English ended up seeing through the
texts soon enough though)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: American aisling?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 13 Aug 06 - 04:37 AM

Thanks Sean.

eric

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: American aisling?
From: GUEST,Fred McCormick
Date: 13 Aug 06 - 04:59 AM

Check Erin's Green Shore in Digitrad. EGS is an English language "aisling" about Daniel O' Connell, but it turns up in American collections with astonishing regularity; so much so in fact that I suspect its popularity there might be attributable to the destruction of the southern American economy afer the civil war.

Seán Báite's summary of the word aisling is pretty spot on. I'm not sure though that the dream vision device was invented to fool the English. Rather, it was an old established convention which was adapted to suit the socio/political climate post Cromwellian invasion. In fact, aislings were traditionally sung in Gaelic and would therefore have been incomprehensible to the occupying forces.

BTW., there is a paper, written by D.K. Wilgus and published I remember not where, but called The Cowboy and the Aisling.