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Sleeve Notes
I want to offer my grateful thanks to all the people who helped me in the making of this CD. It was recorded in Steve Cooney's Éaníní Studio in Co. Kildare and my first thanks must go to Steve for giving me so much of his time, musical ability and engineering skills. We shared the stress, strain and hysterical laughter of many a long night! Thanks Steve! My dear friend Rens van der Zalm was again wonderfully in tune with my sometimes odd musical proclivities and Lindsey Horner from New York and currently living in Brussels would always be my first choice as Double Bass player. Many thanks for their unmatched instrumental skills to Máire Breatnach, Cormac Breatnach, Dermot Byrne, Declan Masterson, Liam O'Flynn, Nikola Parov and Brendan Power. To Lynn Kavanagh, Mandy Murphy and Phil Callery for their backing vocals. Thanks to Eoin and Liz at the Mill for kindness, sympathy and lodgings when the nights overtook us. To Frits Wielens at Grafotone who has been a rock throughout most of my career. To Brian Masterson and Ciaran at Windmill, and a very special thank you to Ed Kenehan.
Gladiators — "That great Army of the tireless, world-tramping, universal I.W.W. They passed from land to land and from continent to continent with as little care as some men cross the street. Down in the coal bunkers of ships, passing frontiers secretly in the dead of night with the World Revolution ever foremost in their minds, ever guiding their footsteps". So wrote Tom Barker of the Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies as they became known. In their brief but vociferous career in Australia, just before, during and after the First World War, they stood up very strongly against the government's plan to introduce conscription. When the people of Australia twice voted against conscription, the government under W.M. Hughes "The Little Digger" decided to make the I.W.W. illegal. This it did by fair means and foul. Mainly the latter. Barker was, at the time, editor of the I.W.W. newspaper, "Direct Action" and he was jailed for printing a cartoon of a soldier, crucified on a gun carriage while Mr. Fat, The Financier, raised his glass to war profits. I first heard of Tom Barker in London when I was a young man. He was famous for having flown the Red Flag from St. Pancras Town Hall while he was Mayor there. The I.W.W. is still going strong, still striving to "To Fan the Flames of Discontent."
Moreton Bay — This is one of the best known Australian Convict Ballads. Captain Patrick Logan was the cruel Commander of Moreton Bay Penal Colony between 1826 and 1830 when he met his death at the hands — and spears — of a party of Aboriginal hunters. He was found buried face downwards in a shallow grave "Looking at Hell, where he was surely bound". The convicts at Moreton Bay went nearly insane with joy at the news of his death. My good friend Kevin Bradley, who is Sound Archivist at the National Library of Australia in Canberra invited me to learn and sing this song at the Woodford Festival in Queensland in 1998. The original was recorded by Simon MacDonald (1907-1968) of Creswick, Victoria.
They'll never believe it's true & Froggy's Jig — This was meant to be a song called "The Two Sisters" that I found in a Cecil Sharpe collection many years ago. I'd always been a bit irked that some people, who recorded it subsequently, had seemingly not known that the tune — and some of the words — were mine. However when we put the backing track down, Steve was entranced by it and decided it was "Faerie Music". We bandied around ideas for a week or two and one morning, when I woke up, this song greeted me. Needless to say not all of it is true …
The Girl I left behind — I've known the first part of this song since I was quite young. I heard it on a Library of Congress Album sung by Mrs. Pearl Borusky, who recorded it in Ohio. I later heard the great Seamus Ennis sing it at a party in Peggy Jordan's in Dublin. I found this full version late one summer's night in Sam Henry's Collection Songs of the People — How had I never seen it before?
Way Out Yonder — Since my travels in the Balkans in the late '60's, I have been fascinated by the musical traditions of that area, the Bulgarian tradition in particular. Many kind people from around the world have sent me cassettes from their collections over the years and this tune crops up quite regularly. My thanks to those people, too numerous to mention. Thanks also to Nikola Parov and Brendan Power who went out of their way to record Gadulka and Harmonica on this track.
The Highwayman — Okay, a lot of people have recorded this old classic poem before me. I think Phil Ochs was the first and I played on a version of Danny Doyle's back in the Eighties. A couple of years ago, Loreena McKennitt, the Canadian Singer and Harpist asked me to play on a version she was recording. Unfortunately our schedules never coincided but I was much taken with her tune and started singing the song myself. I think I've changed the odd word here and there and I hope the Shade of Alfred Noyes will forgive me.
When the Boys are on Parade — Marcus Turner is a very clever songwriter from Dunedin, New Zealand. We saw in the New Year together at the Whare Flat Festival in 1999, where I heard him sing this song. Whare Flat is the first Festival that takes place in the Calendar year. It is small and friendly. No "them" and "us" like at some bigger festivals. Just "us" …
On a Distant Shore — Written while spending two days on a deserted beach called Waihua on the North Island of New Zealand. I recorded the waves there.
Born in Carrickfergus — One evening in Brisbane I was talking to Adrian Jeffries, a very fine Uillean Piper and teacher of the Irish Language there. He was talking about his upbringing as a Catholic in mainly Protestant East Antrim. His story about the Troubles in the Seventies was so graphic that I asked him if he would write it down and send it to me. I wrote this, based on his own words, on Waihua beach in New Zealand. The hardship of his early life is of course mirrored in the lives of many another, on both sides of the community.