It begins!

I've got the start of my first track, Anachie Gordon down. The recording was the easy (for me) part, now for all the digital tweaks and edits.
The unedited track is available for a listen here. 

Plans and Progress

Between the day job and other distractions I haven't gotten as much done on this project as I'd have liked, but such is life!

One of the things that has struck me as I've been looking at material is the sheer number of songs that fall into the Dead Lovers category. That's got me thinking that this might be fun to keep going with beyond a single recording. Also, having done a lot of thinking on overdubbing, digital instruments and the like, I'm realizing what I'd really like to do is try to get an actual band together around performing some of this stuff. 

With that all in mind, what I'm thinking is that I'm going to start small and simple with my initial recording work for what we'll call "Dead Lovers Volume I" and make a fairly traditional folk album out of it. By that I mean fairly live sounding, instrument and voice with minimal editing or overdubs. I figure this will be a fairly harp-driven thing, because... well, harp is good for singing about tragic romances. 

From that, I hope to recruit a few other collaborators who would be interested in the project and take it in a bit more "folk rock" direction. My ideal group would be a trio with with harp, cello and percussion, and include a female vocalist to do harmonies and trade leads on, but I have to see who I can find who thinks this might be fun. I'm hoping with the first recording in hand I can start reaching out to the local music scene to see if anyone else wants to play. 

I'm going to start laying down some basic tracks this week and playing with my minimalist recording setup (a decent USB mic and a basic DAW for now) and will hopefully have some halfway decent audio to post here soon. 

Maimed Lovers (and some notes on instrumentation): Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye

Several of the songs we've explored here have characters die in battle, but what if you want to write a tragic ballad where the lover doesn't die?

In the 19th-Century broadsheet ballad "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" (Roud 3137) the titular Johnny has gone off in the military, leaving his sweetheart behind in Athy, County Kildare, with a newborn child (depending on the version, it may be made clear that they weren't married, and the child may be the result of a "fond farewell" to the young hero). 

Johnny was off in "Sulloon" or Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) which was under British rule at the time and he was seriously wounded. By "seriously" I mean "Anakin Skywalker at the end of Episode III" wounded. Young Johnny lost his arms, legs and eyes in fighting there and was destined to live out the rest of his time as a beggar. It seems likely the fighting references was decades earlier during the Kandyan Wars, or possibly the more recent Matale Rebellion. 

The song was first published in 1867 and is credited to songwriter Joseph B. Geoghegan, who wrote several music hall songs that have passed into the folk tradition. It appears to be a parody of the 1863 Civil War marching song "When Johnny Comes Marching Home" by Irish-American bandleader Patrick Gilmore.

 It's sometimes speculated that the much darker "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye" was the older song, and the American version was a "cleaned up" take on it, but documents don't seem to bear that out. Personally, I think it's a very believable idea that a songwriter would take a popular marching song and make a grim parody of it by replacing the patriotic optimism with a tale about the gruesome consequences of war. The song also nicely captured a theme of the growing Irish Independence movement: young men from Ireland, itself a nation under British rule, were recruited to go fight and suffer abroad in other British colonies, to help the Crown keep its power. 

Although it's not confirmed, I also suspect that the song influenced Dalton Trumbo's book "Johnny Got His Gun" in which the protagonist suffers a similar fate during fighting in World War I. 

In a lot of later versions, including my own, the last verse of the song has kind of an epilogue:  "they're rolling out the guns again... but they'll never take our sons again," making for a powerful anti-war statement. 

I've actually got two videos to go with this song, to illustrate something that's been on my mind as I make plans for the final recording. In the older one I accompany myself with the harp, the newer I use the guitar. In both I use the traditional tune "The Road to Lisdoonvarna" as an intro. 

In many ways, both versions of the song are pretty similar. Instrument choice does have an effect on the texture of the song, but in both cases the focus should be, for better worse, on my voice. And if I'm recording a multitracked version of it, there's no reason that I can't blend both guitar and harp in the final mix. The choice of instrument has a lot more effect on eventual live performances in support of the recording. 

Both instruments have their pros and cons. I really enjoy playing the harp, and find it much easier to play instrumental pieces on it because, one, I'm more proficient at it, and two, because it's nature makes it easier to play accompanying chords with the left hand while playing  melody with the right. On the other hand, the guitar is better for rhythmic strumming and driving faster songs. It's also easier to travel with, having fewer strings to deal with and a more compact shape. For traveling out of town (say, flying back East) it also has the advantage of being easily fit into a hardshell case (a flight-worthy case for the harp would have to be custom made and cost upwards of $500) and having replacement parts and strings available in any local music shop. 

What may end up happening is that I record this project with a wide variety of instruments, and then take it "on the road" with just a guitar, or guitar and mandolin. It's pretty predictable as far as folk music goes, and I'm honestly not that great a guitar player, but it's a much simpler option. We'll see. 

The Arranging Dilemma

It's been a busy couple months and I haven't added any new songs or updates for a bit, but the Dead Lovers Project will be continuing into the new year, and I'm about ready to start the first recordings.

But I've got to make some decisions first.

Generally, when I've done solo recordings, my goal has been to capture as "live" an experience as possible, with few or no overdubs and only a single instrument and my voice. This is a pretty common way to record traditional folk artists, and it's pretty simple system. You set up a microphone or two, and play the song through several times until you get a take you're happy with. A number of traditional and classical artists record this way still.

Now, when I've worked with a group, there have been several instruments and vocalists involved, and in most cases these were all recorded one at a time. First a "scratch" track would be laid out, usually with guitar and voice, then a better rhythm guitar track, a polished vocal track and then any instrumental overdubs needed. Often there would be extra instrumental tracks to fill out the sound, sometimes involving harmonies and instruments that the group would never be using in a live performance. Afterwards, there would be tuning and tweaking to hide mistakes and fix off notes. This would result in an idealized version of what the song could sound like, and is probably the most common way of recording rock and popular music.

A third way of doing a record, which I've debated trying and never attempted, is for a single artist to record multiple tracks, and maybe even mix in some electronic rhythm tracks. I've thought about venturing into the "folktronica" realm with this sort of thing, updating and modernizing the sound by mixing acoustic and digital instruments together. It would be something new to me, but could lead to some cool results.

Now the first way of recording is well within my comfort zone, and within the capabilities of the equipment I already own. I can run cardiod or condensor microphones directly into my little Tascam recorder and mix it to my computer. I can even do some limited overdubbing this way, and there are free audio programs like Audacity that let me tweak the sound to some degree. My home laptop is... OK for this sort of thing, although it's been getting cranky and noisy lately, but I've done a couple of projects this way.

If I wanted to do a more elaborately mixed and arranged album, I'd need some additional equipment. Digital interfaces that let me record directly to my computer and better software. Or, one thing I've seen some artists work with lately is recording directly to an iPad using a dedicated interface. This has the advantage of portability and simplicity and having a device dedicated to recording and music production would help me keep myself organized (always a difficult task in my case). Whichever way I go about it, I'd need to buy at least a few hundred dollars worth of gear.

Of course, I could also book time at a recording studio, but that gets pricey quickly, and I'd have to have a very clear idea of what I wanted, with less room for experimentation than a home recording.

I still haven't quite figured out what I want to do yet. I still also have a couple songs I'd like to learn, but I could start recording the ones I know well before I finish the learning of the new (to me) ones.

Anyway, that's where my head is at lately! Hopefully I'll have more read progress to post soon.

Happy New Year all!

Dead Lovers in the Machine Age: 1952 Vincent Black Lightning

For most of the upcoming recording project (which I'll be starting on soon, I've got a bit of gear to acquire in the next few weeks and then I'll be putting down basic tracks), I'll be focusing on songs from the 1800s, However, it's worth noting that the tradition of Dead Lover ballads is alive and well in modern music as well.

Songs like "Last Kiss," and "Leader of the Pack" adapted the tradition of the departed loved one to the popular music of the 1950s and 1960s, becoming their own genre known as "Teenage Tragedy Songs." The genre waned in popularity by the late 1960s but never quite went away. While a number of these modern songs describe death in battle (particularly in more patriotic offerings), by disease or by drug overdose, the number one killer of sweethearts in songs of the past half-century or so seems to be the automobile.

It's not surprising, as the cars became more common and accessible in the latter half of the 20th Century, traffic fatalities rose steadily, only declining relatively recently. Car crashes were, and still are, one of the prime killers of healthy young people, and carry with them the shock of suddenness and reflect the dark side of the independence that a car offers to teenagers. All pretty dramatic psychological stuff!

This week's song does center around a motor vehicle, but it actually outlives our protagonist.

"1952 Vincent Black Lightning" is a song by Richard Thompson off his 1991 album "Rumor and Sigh." It tells the kind of story that should be familiar to aficionados of all sorts of Dead Lover ballads: a brash young outlaw is in love with a red-haired maiden, but he is mortally wounded in a caper gone wrong and only has time to profess his love for her and offer her a token of his eternal devotion before breathing his last.

The twist, of course, is that it's set in the modern(ish) day, and young James dies of a shotgun blast to the chest during an armed robbery near London, and the "token" he leaves behind is his beloved motorcycle.

Thompson chose that particular vehicle to include in his modernized ballad in particular because of it's rarity and fame. The Black Lightning was the fastest production bike in the world when it was made, and only 30 of them were built in 1952, it was equivalent to the magic sword or elfin steed of earlier stories. It was also distinctly British, which was important to Thompson in setting this particular song in his home country.

It's a wonderful song and it's been covered beautifully by far more worthy artists than myself, but it's well worth picking up the album or listening to a live rendition by the man himself (he's a seriously brilliant guitar player, not just a great songwriter)

It may just be true that nothing beats a '52 Vincent and a red-headed girl.

For Men Must Work and Women Must Weep (Labor Day Special): Three Fishers

In 1851 an Anglican preacher by the name of Charles Kingsley published a poem based on recollections of his childhood in Clovelly, a small coastal town in southwest England mostly populated by herring fishermen and their families. Of course, Kingsley likely had many sunny summer afternoons enjoying the salt air of the seashore, but we're talking Dead Lovers songs here, so his poem was obviously not one of that sort.

Instead, Kingsley recalled a day "when the old bay lay darkened with the grey columns of the waterspouts stalking across the waves before the northern gale," and the local fleet of tiny herring boats fleeing before the storm trying fruitlessly to make their way between the waves and the rocky coastline while the fishermen's families watched helplessly from shore. "Corpse after corpse swept up at the feet of wife and child," he said, "till in one case alone saw upwards of sixty widows and orphans weeping over those who had gone out the night before."

As an adult, Kingsley became a priest and author and was involved in the Christian Socialist movement. He was an advocate for the rights of the working class and for protecting them against abuse and exploitation by the wealthy. After being chastised for preaching on the topic, he recalled the dangers and hardships faced by the poor fishermen he knew in his youth, and wrote his famous poem, "Three Fishers." It was set to music shortly thereafter, and became a popular Victorian parlor song. At some point it entered the folk tradition, with the help of Canadian musicians Stan and Garnet Rogers, has become popular again with a slightly different melody than its original setting.

The phrase "Men must work and women must weep," became something of a catchprase in the Victorian labor movement. At the time, of course, many of the most dangerous jobs, including commercial fishing, mining and factory work were done almost exclusively by men (though the pre-union era wasn't exactly a safe time for working class women either), and their wives had to face the possibility that the man they loved and counted on might be killed or crippled at any time, leaving them and their children to face starvation and homelessness.

The song is perhaps so moving because, rather than focus on the struggle of the men caught in the storm, it focuses on the helplessness of those left on the shore. The wives sit up at night keeping the lighthouse flame going with some degree of determination, but you get the sense as "they looked at the squall and they looked at the shower" they knew there was little hope. To me the most chilling line in the whole song is "for the sooner it's over the sooner to sleep." It's a reminder that for these people, poor working class families, there's no gracious period of extended mourning, but yet another day full of chores and tasks ahead of them, children to feed, a house to manage, now made infinitely harder with the loss of a husband. There may be a little sleep to be had when the crying is done, but there will be no rest.

This isn't a song about wealthy women pining away for their suitors or knights bravely dying for love, but people facing a hard and storm-lashed existence, yet still trying to love and support each other. When they're gone all that's left is the moaning of the wind across the sandbar.

Rebellion, Resurrection and Revenge!: The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

Some  Dead Lover Ballads feature lovers who were slain in warfare, or found a violent end. In most of these cases the story focuses on the surviving lover grieving for their lost partner and taking a pretty passive "woe is me" stance which is typical of the ballad genre. However in this case the young man narrating the story reacts to the killing of his sweetheart with a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.

"The Wind That Shakes The Barley" (Roud 2994) is one of those ballads for which we actually have a known author. It was written by poet and scholar Robert Dwyer Joyce (1830-1883) in 1861 about the failed Irish Rebellion of 1798. It tell of a young rebel who is trying to tell his sweetheart that he plans to leave her behind to fight in the rebellion. As they're talking, however, a British (or loyalist militiaman) shoots her and kills her. The young rebel then joins the rebel forces at the Battle of Oulart Hill as they slaughtered a small detachment of the British Army.

The young man then goes on to state that it's more likely than not that he'll be joining his love in the afterlife soon enough. Cheerful stuff!

The history of the many rebellions and the ongoing conflict between the Irish and British colonial rule is long, complicated, and far beyond the scope of a single folk music blog post, but to touch very briefly on what was going on in the 1790s, well, the British were being pretty terrible.

To grossly oversimplify, at the time, anyone Catholic (which included the vast majority of native Irish) had their rights severely restricted. They either couldn't own or were very limited in what land they could have, had not right to public office or to the vote, and were mostly ruled over by a small upper class of British protestant landlords. Around that time the few Catholics with any influence and Protestant sympathizers pushed for better treatment and more representation. They had some success, but achieved nothing near equality and that frustration, along with the influence of the more successful revolutions in America and France, stirred up a rebellion against the British.

France was supposed to lend military support, but various circumstances and crossed signals led to a lot of failures. And in response British forces in Ireland responded with tactics that would make even today's "tough on terror" crowd blanche. British forces burned homes and murdered those suspected of supporting the rebellion, and used torture methods such as half-hanging and pitchcapping (look them up if you want to, but they're not nice things, trust me) to attempt to extract information or (more likely) to intimidate Irish citizens.

In the days leading up to this particular battle, British militiamen burned a number of homes and killed civilians all around the Wexford area. The narrator's sweetheart may have been fictional, but her fate was very much based on real events. Once Irish forces had massed, though, they greatly outnumbered the British, and by holding the high ground and having set up an ambush near the battle lines, they killed almost all of the British troops.

Other encounters during the short-lived uprising didn't go so well and by the autumn of that year the rebellion was over, though resistance to British rule would continue at various level of intensity until the Republic of Ireland had formed in the 20th Century, and beyond in Northern Ireland, which is still under the flag of the United Kingdom, a fact which not everyone who lives there is entirely thrilled about (though, like I said, I'm not going to even try to tell that whole story here).

One important, but easily overlooked bit of symbolism, though, is worth noting. The Irish rebels were sometimes called "Croppy Boys" for their close-cropped haircuts. Often the Irish who were killed in battle, or executed as prisoners would be buried in unmarked mass graves, which were nicknamed "Croppy Holes" A lot of these men carried rations made up of barley grains with them, and after a time the grains that were in the pockets of the dead men would sprout from the ground of the Croppy Holes, which the Irish took as a symbol of how their resistance to British rule would rise, again and again, no matter how many times it was cut down.

The wind through the barley isn't just an example of a pretty rural setting for this story, it's a powerful symbol for a movement that continued beyond the end of our Dead Lovers, and into the modern day.