Eight Songwriters and a Scientist: The Darwin Song Project

Eight somgwriters were invited to take on a creative challenge...

When you think of Charles Darwin — should you think of him at all — you might call up images of the tropics in the Galapagos Islands, or the harsh climate of Tierra del Fuego at the tip of South America, or possibly monkeys and courtrooms in Tennessee.

All of those have connections with the nineteenth century scientist, but with the exception of five years spent voyaging around the world on the HMS Beagle, Darwin spent most of his life and did most of his groundbreaking thinking and writing at home in rural Shropshire, in the English midlands, not far from the border between England and Wales.

It was there that eight songwriters gathered, in a farm house that was already old in Darwin’s time, to create a group of songs to mark the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth.

That in itself would have been challenging enough. Added in to The Darwin Song Project: although each musician was an accomplished writer and performer in the folk music world, for the most part they did not know each other at all.

In addition, they’d have to perform the songs at an already sold out concert at the end of the week they’d spend together, a concert which would be recorded for an album and taped for a program to be broadcast on the BBC.

A full set of challenges, then...

It seems only right that the song they decided on to open the concert and the recording was called Trust in the Rolling Ocean. It finds Darwin jumping head first into voyages to unknown lands.

That song was a collaboration among four of the writers, Karine Polwart, from Scotland, and Jez Lowe, Rachael McShane, and Stu Hanna, all from England.

Many of songs the group created are collaborations, while a a few, such as American Krista Detor’s meditation on time, change, and mystery called Clock of the World, were written by a single artist.

The flourishing strangeness and attraction of tropical lands comes up in another song, Turtle Soup. Darwin is on the run in the western outlaw style ballad We’ll Hunt Him Down, and From Miss Emma Brawley finds an indignant woman setting Darwin straight on man and monkeys.

Deep questions of faith, family, and facing change come into play beyond the science and the controversy, as well.

Mother of Mysteries, written by American Mark Erelli along with Karine Polwart, puts Darwin the questioner front and center. Erelli has a master’s degree in evolutionary biology, “but I felt that stuff was tangential to any songs we were going to write. It was really more about the man than the theory,” he said.

That’s a conclusion to which all of the artists came, although they each did differing sorts of research while preparing for the project.

“I wasn’t too bothered by the science side of things,” Emily Smith said. “I don’t grapple with evolution, it’s not really bothered me about where we come from or how old we are and what not.”

Smith, from Scotland, mixes both traditional material from Scotland and her own original songs in her work. “I was much more drawn to his personal life,” she said, “and his relationship with Emma and the children.”

Darwin and his wife Emma shared a deep love, and deep differences over ideas of faith.

Smith, along with Stu Hanna and Jez Lowe, get to the heart of that elegantly yet directly in Save a Place :

Farewell my love

Close though you be

Your mind is many many miles away

From your children and me

The world you spent traveling is here

at your feet:

Is there a way to make it all complete?

At the end of the week, all the songs, styles of collaboration and co writing, and differing voices and instruments came together for the live concert, and live recording at Theatre Severn, in Shrewsbury.

“The stage was brand new, too, and the day we had the concert, the theatre staff, the sound guys, us, the music — everybody was literally finding their feet everywhere, “ Smith recalled.

“There was such potential for things to go wrong, but I think there was such huge hope in all our hearts for things to go smoothly — and I’m still amazed at how good the recording sounds. If we’d gone into a studio, you wouldn’t have gotten that energy to it.”

A fine energy, indeed, excellent leads, creative backing vocals and instrumentation, and a range of thought provoking songs which reach beyond the specific details from which they arose.

Whether science, family, history, or creativity is your focus, the songs these musicians created for The Darwin Song Project will make good companions.

Another version of this story first appeared at Perceptive Travel. It is no longer available so it seemed a good time to bring The Darwin Song Project here, especially as you’ll find other stories about several of these artists here at Music Road.

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Scotland's music: Light is in the Horizon from Eddi Reader

Eddi Reader is a Scot through and through.

Her work in the songs of Scotland’s national bard, Robert Burns, is some of the best you’ll hear.

Reader is also an artist sure in her own creativity, sure enough to explore and put her own stamp on music from whatever source draws her interest.

As her performing background has included the top charting rock hit Perfect (when she was with Fairground Attraction), busking many sorts of music on the streets of France as well as in her native Glasgow, performing with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra and performing the songs of Burns with classical orchestral backing, yes, she has the skill and adventurous spirit to take on a wide range of music.

She also has the voice, and focus, to make her own contributions, as a songwriter and as an arranger of folk songs, as well as the insight to make interesting choices from known and lesser known music across many styles and eras.

Light is in the Horizon is a gathering of twelve tracks in which you will find all this.

There are songs you are sure to know. Fools Rush In is one of those.

There are others that you will know, or not, depending on your listening tastes and to some extent where you live or grew up. Mary Skeffington, written by Gerry Rafferty, is one of those.

There are songs from the 1940s -- Beneath the Lights of Home for example -- and recent music including a song from Reader’s longtime musical collaborator Boo Hewerdine, called I Thought It Was You.

Reader’s own songs stand well in such company. She shows a fine, thoughtful, and varied touch with both word and melody in songs including Auld House and Argyll. For the title track, Light is in the Horizon, she drew inspiration and adapted language from a short poem by Thomas Moore.

Reader has a clear way of making music her own, adding to the sprit of a piece whilst staying true to it.

If there’s a theme through the songs on Light is in the Horizon it is ideas of hope, and of connection.

A collection of fine songs, indeed. it is.

Eddi Reader’s voice, and her way of inhabiting character and story with it, are also throughlines in this collection, and indeed all of her music.

That there are such throughlines and connections is all the more interesting when you learn that these twelve songs were not thought of as a collection at first. They were out-takes, outliers if you will, from other projects.

Though they are not named with individual songs, you will find that Reader is backed by many musicians who've joined her in the past, among them John McCusker,Charlie Bessa-Reader, Ewen Vernal, John Douglas, Ian Carr, Alison Freegard, and Phil Cunningham.

Here is what Eddi writes about how Light is in the Horizon came to be:

“These songs were left behind from the recording sessions of my last two albums. While they didn’t find their way onto those collections, they have been insisting on being heard by you.

“Gathering them together has been a joy, and now I have the opportunity to share them with you.

”Hope and light is in the horizon always...”

You may also wish to see
Eddi Reader’s website
Eddi Reader’s album Cavalier
Eddi Reader Sings the Songs of Robert Burns
Uam from Julie Fowlis,, on which Eddi joins Julie for the song Wind and Rain, sung in both Gaelic and English

Photograph of Eddi Reader in performance at Celtic Connections in Glasgow by Kery Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

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Gifts of Winter: 5 recordings to explore

Reflection and creativity are both part of winter, and of the Advent season.

With those two things in mind, here is a bit about several long time favorite recordings which go along with winter time.

Seasonal music not your thing? No worries, there will be more to come of non seasonal new releases and old favorites, good for holiday gift lists as well. Also check out the links toward the end of this piece...

The title track of Cara Dillon’s album Upon a Winter’s Night was written by Cara’s musical partner and husband, Sam Lakeman, and their son Noah. It’s a piece which evokes, among other things, the ideas of changes and celebration which go along with the Christmas story. It has a lively chorus to which you may find yourself singing along, as well. There is also outstanding uillean pipe contribution from Jarlath Henderson.

There are two more original tracks along with a selection of well known and perhaps lesser known songs on the recording. There is one piece in Irish, Rug Muire Mhac Do Dhia, and a fine take on O Holy Night for which Cara is joined by her sister Mary Dillon. Sam plays guitar or piano or bodhran on most tracks and several other musical friends sit in, including Niall Murphy on fiddle and James Fagan on bouzouki. Cara Dillon brings to this music a bit of the stillness and the joy of winter in her native Northern Ireland.

Matt and Shannon Heaton make their music at places where the music of Ireland and the folk traditions of North American music intersect.

On their album Fine Winter’s Night this is well in evidence with song and tune both reflective and upbeat. Both Heatons song and both write songs; hearing them trade lead and harmony on songs both traditional and original is one of the things to enjoy about this recording. Each is a fine player and a composer of tunes as well, which you will hear, for example, on Dust of Snow, and in their version of the Shetland tune Da Day Dawn. Shannon’s principal instrument is the flute, Matt’s are guitar and bouzouki.

You hear those on the tunes of course, and they well know how to weave their gifts on their instruments into songs as well. Shannon’s title track Fine Winter’s Night is a fine recognition of the brilliance of cold winter nights and the welcome of warmth within. In First Snowfall of December Matt draws listeners in to a tale of Victorian era New England Christmas time. The duo offer well known songs too. While keeping to the spirit of the season, they give carols including O Little Town of Bethlehem and It Came Upon the Midnight Clear a fresh dusting of creative ideas.

Kathy Mattea has two wintery albums out. Good News and Joy for Christmas Day.

On Good News, there are two songs form the tradition, Christ Child Lullabye from Scotland (with Scottish troubadour Dougie Maclean joining in) and and Brightest and Best. The eight contemporary cuts include Mattea’s own memorable Somebody Talkin’ About Jesus, along with the haunting title track written by Ron Mahes. and perhaps the best known songs from the album: Mary Did You Know? and New Kid in Town.

On Joy for Christmas Day, Mattea puts her own thoughtful stamp on O Come O Come Emmanuel, and offers a Christmas Collage of carols, featuring the guitar and arranging skill of her longtime guitarist, Bill Cooley. The eleven tracks are a mix of traditional and contemporary music for Advent and Christmas time. Among them are When the Baby Grew Up, O Come, All Ye Faithful, and the reflective Straw Against the Chill

Emily Smith chose a mix of traditional and contemporary music for her album Songs for Christmas, too. Smith comes from Scotland and is a fine songwriter as well as a singer and player of accordion, piano, and guitar. She’s joined by her musical partner and husband Jamie McClennan who plays guitar, fiddle, and is a singer and songwriter as well. Their musical journey winds from historic carols to contemporary Americana to Scotland based stories. All are well worth repeated listening. That said, listen out especially for Little Road to Bethlehem, Christ Has My Hairt, Ay, and Smith’s originals Find Hope and Winter Song.

Each of these albums is a winter season classic, well worth your listening for musicianship, creativity and, indeed, grace of the season.

Image by Jerzy Górecki from Pixabay

You may also enjoy
Three more albums of winter, from Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, Hanneke Cassel, and April Verch and Joe Newberry.
First story of this season’s holiday gift ideas: Albums from Sarah McQuaid, the Spell Songs Singers, and the band Staran
A story about A candle in the window, at Perceptive Travel
Music for Starry Winter Nights, at Wandering Educators
Second in this season’s holiday gift ideas: music from Graham Rorie, David Milligan, Karine Polwart
Advent: music, silence, and winter

In times when you are able to listen to much music at no cost, take this as a gentle reminder that if you enjoy this music, help support the work of these artists and the cause of good, thoughtful music everywhere by purchasing their music and merch. Direct purchase from an artist’s site is one way. Bandcamp is also a platform which supports artists’ work.

Speaking of support, if you’re in a position to do so this holiday season (and beyond), your support for Music Road is most welcome. Here’s one way:

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Tradition with edge: music from Leahy, Karan Casey, and Project Smok

Tradition and heritage: sources of ideas, inspiration, and challenges for musicians. There are as many ways to respond to tradition as there are artists who draw on it in their work. In albums from Canadian musicians Leahy, Irish singer Karan Casey, and the trio Project Smok from Scotland, there are varied ways of working within, without, and at the edges of tradition to explore.

Leahy is a family band from Lakefield in Ontario. They’ve roots in the traditions of Ireland and Cape Breton as well as the varied musics that make up the sounds of Ontario. There are performing roots, too: the eleven siblings of the Leahy family grew up playing music at home, and performing across Canada and winning Juno awards in the process. Members of the band have come and gone and returned since they first became nationally known in the 1990s; for the album Good Water seven family members join in.

Join in they do, and add new dimensions to Leahy’s music as they do. Though you will hear influences of Celtic and folk in the music they offer on their album Good Water, you will also find rock, pop, and progressive influences . It’s a well and thoughtfully done collection of original music; the songs have lyrics of substance and the two instrumentals offer thought provoking ideas, too. The members of Leahy can play and sing, each often taking more than one role. For their main presences on Good Water, Denise and Julie Frances often take the lead vocalist spot; Siobheann on bass and Frank on drums hold down the steady beat of rhythm; Maria brings in guitar and mandolin; Xavier adds accordion; Erin brings in keyboards and fiddle. Guest artists add edge with electric instruments, strings, and horns.

There is edge, certainly, but edge that serves to define the strong musical, lyrical, and creative foundation of the recording. You just might hear echoes of the energy and creative risk taking that infused Call to Dance, the music which first brought Leahy to topping the charts and touring with Shania Twain in the 1990s. You may hear them going in directions you’d not expect from Leahy, perhaps, but directions full of quality and imagination nonetheless. Listen out especially for the uplifting message and fine harmonies and playing on the title track, Good Water; heartfelt singing from Julie Frances on Friend; and class playing from Erin and Xavier on the instrumental Little Moon.

Karan Casey knows about differing ways of looking at tradition and influence in her music, too. She’s been doing that since her days as a founding member of the groundbreaking Irish American band Solas and for more than two decades of solo and collaborative recording projects. In her album Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale Casey continues to expand her vision and her choices. There are songs by Americana and folk tunesmiths including Eliza Gilkyson, Janis Ian (from whose lyrics the title of the album comes), Bob Dylan, and Patti Griffin, along with a pair of traditional songs and from Casey’s own writing a song about a little known aspect of Ireland’s 1916 Easter Rising.

Casey has a lovely voice and knows well how to use it; great musical intelligence is one of the hallmarks of her singing as well as her song choice and her songwriting. From from the low key beginning of Hollis Brown to its intense ending, she illuminates the emotions of the hard told story. That she follows it with the quiet intensity of Down in the Glen, that song about the Rising, serves to make the latter that much more powerful. Sixteen Come Next Sunday is Casey’s take on music and lyrics from the tradition, respecting each of those in her own ways.

“I don’t get into the whole ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ question,” Casey told Sean Smith of the Boston Irish Reporter. “For me, the criteria is, ‘Is it a good song?’ We’re always looking for stories that are sung well and delivered with meaning, and that’s what’s most important. It really has always been about the song, and the story...Your creative center has to be genuine. You have to really want to sing that song.”

Every song on Hieroglyphs is a keeper. It is a well sequenced project too. Donald Shaw produced it. Casey is also supported by long time musical collaborators Sean Óg Graham and Niamh Dunne, Kate Ellis, and Niall Vallely, as well as guest artists including Karen Matheson and Maura O’Connell.

The three men who make up Scotland’s trio Project Smok -- Pablo Lafuente on guitars, Ewan Baird on bodhran, and Ali Levack on whistles and pipes -- are mixing tradition and invention in their work as well. On their debut recording Bayview and at their high energy live gigs (including a memorable one at Celtic Connections 2021 online) it’s clear that these three know how to play, and how to play together.

They had the opportunity to record in Helmsdale in Scotland’s northeast, at the studio of well known punk rock musician and producer Edwyn Collins. That’s a studio equipped with vintage microphones and a classic Neve mixing desk. The band knew this would fit with their plan to record an album which respected tradition while being forward looking.

“Experimenting with vintage and analogue equipment, using the best instruments available, gave us an even greater opportunity to fuse contemporary and traditional sounds to produce something really authentic, which sounds close to the source,” said Levack.

Close to the source indeed: all the tunes on Bayview have some connection with place, including Clashnarrow, which is named after the studio in which they recored, Woodlands Drive, from the place where Levack lives in Glasgow, Viewbank from Pablo’s studio in Airdrie, and Airsaig, a west coast place important to all three band members. It’s a sparkling collection of music, which does well fit the band’s intentions of being connected to tradition while adding in new strands.

Bayview is a mostly instrumental album, but a stripped back version of A Girl Like You, the 19190s hit from Collins, finds him joining in as the band play back up on the classic. A meditative track, Ceitidh’s, finds John Mulhearn, Rona Lightfoot, and Megan Henderson adding a touch of voices to the track. Charlie Stewart on bass and James D Mackenzie on flutes also add to that track, while MIke Vass, Moshen Amiini, and Greg Barry are among those who also sit it. The focus is on the sound the trio, though, and a lively and well thought out debut it is, co-produced by the trio along with MIke Vass.

Leahy with Good Water. Karan Casey with Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale, and the men of Project Smok with Bayview: all the musicians have clear eyed and creative approaches to ways to take sound and spirit of traditional music forward. Give listen for what discoveries await.

You may also wish to see
One, duo album from Donnell Leahy and Natalie MacMaster
Leahy Live in Gatineau dvd, an earlier version of the Leahy ensemble, some the same as on Good Water, and some different. Step dancing too.
Ships in the Forest from Karan Casey
Meet more musicians from Scotland in my story at Perceptive Travel 7 Ways to Explore Scotland through Music

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Photographs of Leahy and Project Smok courtesy of the artists; photograph of Karan Casey at Celtic Connections by Kerry Dexter, made with permission.

Songs of Hope

Musicians and poets and others who create with ideas and music at times have the best and the deepest things to say about what happens in the world. There is such deep and lasting music from the tradition -- the traditions -- of many countries, handed down the generations, changed and adapted and yet holding truth that resonates.

There's music newly written too, pieces that speak to immediacy of event and feeling and yet hold ideas and connections and ways of thinking that last beyond a specific moment.

These two songs, written in very different times and places each from the other and from what is happening in the world as I write this, yet resonate with each other, and offer hope in times of sorrow and anger as well as in times of peace. Take a listen -- take several.

Carrie Newcomer wrote I Heard an Owl as part of her response to the events of September 11. You may find it on her album The Gathering of Spirits.

Amazing Grace was written in English originally, as a reflection on conversion to faith. Karen Matheson sings it here in Scottish Gaelic. You may find it recorded on Celtic Women of Scotland: Songs of Love & Reflection.

"The only word is courage and the only answer love..."

Music has its place in healing, in connection, in understanding, in crossing borders -- and in hope.

Photograph by Kerry Dexter

You may also wish to see
Carrie Newcomer: Kindred Spirits
Scotland's Music: Karen Matheson, Gaelic, and story
Cathie Ryan: Through Wind and Rain

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Music & Mystery: Conversation with Carrie Newcomer Continues

Songs come to musicians in all sorts of ways, and they make notes and shape ideas and work out words and melody in all sorts of ways. “If you line up eleven songwriters and ask them their process, they’ll give you eleven different ways,” says Carrie Newcomer. “For me there’s a kind of literary bent to it, I guess, where I do a lot of poetry writing, and short stories, and essays. From those pieces, songs emerge.”

She isn’t thinking about the songs while she is immersed in other sorts of writing, though, not directly. It is, rather, the ideas and characters and flow of things she is working on -- or working out.

“I might have to write the whole essay to get to the one line that starts a song,” she says. “Also, a lot of it is how I process -- people say I’m pretty prolific, as a songwriter, but I think it’s just how I process my world, and my life. So I’m always writing, and I do a lot of poetry.

“Once I have the poem or the essay or maybe even a series of poems,” she continues,”I have all this language, and all these ideas I’ve been musing with -- it’s like I have this whole palette of stuff to work with, and I’ve thinking about it, mulling the idea over. Then when I go to write the song I might have some language I’ve been thinking through, but the words and the music happen together.”

What has also happened recently is the publication of Newcomer’s first book, called A Permeable Life: Poems & Essays. It is a companion piece to her album A Permeable Life. Newcomer turned to community funding for this recording, and at first was going to put together a small collection of poems to thank those who had helped make the album possible. “I had started a blog and begun posting some of my poems, so there was some interest in seeing a collection, so I thought I was going to put together a few poems that people might see as having a connection to songs,” she says. “But as I was doing that and we started sending them out, the response I was getting was really wonderful, really heartwarming, and we decided -- actually, my husband really encouraged me, he said you know, let’s just release this as a companion piece to the new album. So I said, yeah, sure, let’s do that!” Newcomer says, laughing.

”I’m used to putting out albums, and there’s a certain kind of thing that happens whenever you put out an album, or a song.You’re taking a certain kind of risk -- whenever you put yourself out there artistically, there’s certain kind of vulnerability to it. I’ve done enough albums now that I’m expecting it -- that doesn’t mean it gets any easier, it’s just that you’re familiar with it,” she says. “ But I had never put out that kind of art work before.”

There are thirteen essays and twenty six poems in the book. It is not necessary to know Newcomer’s work as a musician, or to have heard the songs on the album A Permeable Life, to appreciate what she’s doing as a poet and essayist, though the ways she tells stories and the ideas she choose to emphasize, and the language she chooses, do cross points and paths across the two projects. There are some pieces which relate directly to songs, and some which do not, or for which the connection is less clear. What is clear, however, is that Newcomer’s gift for observation, for including details of the natural world, and now and then bringing in her wry sense of humor come through whichever art she is practicing. So, too, does her gift for making the personal universal, and the thread of finding the sacred in the ordinary. In the essay called In the Sitka Pines, for example, an experience of the wilderness of Alaska and learning about Alaskan salmon forms the gateway into thoughts on transformation, in a piece that’s slightly longer than a page and all the more powerful -- and all the more leaving room to draw the reader in -- for its brevity.

Transformation, the idea of thresholds, and the practice of being present are threads which run through the songs on the album A Permeable Life and in differing ways through the material in the book A Permeable Life: Poems & Essays as well. The poem To a Titmouse finds transformation anchored in connection to an encounter on a snowy walk; Dharamsala, a poem begun after an experience while visiting India, suggests presence, connection, thresholds, and the possibility of transformation as well -- all done through an account of a procession and those watching it.

As a songwriter and singer, Newcomer has command of her tools and uses them to invite community, reflection, and the asking of good questions about life, faith, and change. These too are present in what she creates with her essays and poetry.

Countless prayer flags lifted in the mist
It was like music,
Light and fleeting,
LIngering in the quiet,
Filling the world with longing
And our own good intentions.
~excerpt from Dharamsala copyright Carrie Newcomer

Update: Newcomer has published other books of poetry -- and released several more albums -- since this article was first published. One of those books is

You may also wish to see
Music and Mystery: Conversation with Carrie Newcomer
India to Indiana in song and image
Ireland's Music: The Small Hours: Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh
Ireland's Music: Cara Dillon: A Thousand Hearts

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If you enjoy what you are reading here, I've recently begun publishing an occasional newsletter at Substack with more stories about music, the people who make it, and the places which inspire it. Come visit and check it out!

Music and quiet

Silence: the exterior sort is often inspiration for creative work, and the interior sort is that, too, and is also part of creation itself

So it might seem a paradox that music is very often a gateway to silence. However, when you think about it, really think about and feel music -- and especially if you are a musician yourself -- you’ll come to know that music arises out of silence. It’s not just, hey, we begin! music is, if it’s really good, continuing of and sharing of the inspiration and conversation that begin with that interior quiet. That’s a thought which sounds like another paradox even as I write it, but that makes it no less true.

That idea of creativity arises from silence -- sometimes long quiet, sometimes just the beat of a breath between observation and connection -- works with other sorts of creativity, as well. The dancer in the moment before the dance, the chef at the moment of connecing ideas are also there in that silence. As I write this it is National Poetry Month in the US, so I invite you to think about how this might apply in that area. A recent trip to spend time with the paintings of the Glasgow Boys at Kelvingrove in Glasgow had me reflecting on how this works with visual art as well, especially, for example, the two very different paintings of the Victorian scene in Stirling Station and the evocation of druids in Bringing in the Mistletoe.

Musicians paint their pictures on silence, as the saying goes.

Music to go along with these ideas

Cathie Ryan: The Farthest Wave
Kathy Mattea: Calling Me Home
Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen

and this Eddi Reader: Wild Mountainside

You may also wish to see
Music, meditation, creation
Cathie Ryan: teaching tradition
music, silence, and spiritual journey

Photograph of a wild mountainside in Ireland is by Kerry Dexter, and is copyrighted. Thank you for respecting this.

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Robert Burns, Altan, and Mary Black

Words and music have their own unique connection. There is plenty of music of all sorts with no words attached, of course, as there is poetry which may hold its own rhythms but does little to evoke melody. Then there are lyrics which stand on their without music, and those that don’t, as well as poems which have been set, successfully and less to, to music. Not to mention the melodies of familiar songs which are sometimes challenging to hear without adding the words in your head as you listen.

These are all tools of the artist, whether that artist is poet or songwriter or composer or all three. It is poetry month in the United States, which is what has this on my mind. Are song lyrics poetry set to music.? I get exasperated when people say this. They can be, certainly, but that’s not the way the making of a song works, even if it is a poem being set to music. There’s a connection between lyric and sound of lyric, note and sound of music, which makes the song a unique creation of its own, through alchemy which takes place in the ideas of the artist, and then is created anew each time a song is shared and heard.

To go along with these thoughts, the Irish band Altan offers Green Grow the Rashes O by Robert Burns. Mairéad Ni Mhaonaigh, who would usually have done the singing, was losing her voice that night, and so old friend Irish singer Mary Black stepped in -- and came in for a a bit of ragging from the Scottish crowd (this was a concert during Celtic Connections at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall) for having the lyrics on a paper to refer to. See what she does with them though.

you may also wish to see
Mary Black and Steve Cooney: Just a Journey
Celtic Connections 2012: the music begins
music of Donegal: Altan: The Poison Glen -Gleann Nimhe

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Song for autumn: Mary Black & Steve Cooney: Just a Journey

Steve Cooney, Australian songwriter long writer resident in Ireland, captures the mystery in the landscape and life of both places in his song Just a Journey.

“we are wheat for the bread, we are wind and fire...”

“just a journey of a spirit through a lifetime’s changing...”

are just a few of the phrases which offer new perspective each time one hears the song. It has also always struck me as a song particularly suited for the turn of seasons in autumn. A song with a distinct story to tell yet plenty of room for the listener to bring his or her own stories to the telling as well.

Mary Black sings it here, with Steve Cooney on guitar and backing vocals. You may also find a recording of it, along with a raft of other fine songs, on Black’s two disc set Best Of Mary Black Volume 2

you may also wish to see

Mary Black: Stories from the Steeples

learning about Irish music: a bouquet of albums

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Music and memory

Music and memory: that’s a powerful combination. It’s also a powerful choice. Music can help us remember, and it can help us choose and understand what we remember.

It is also a way to reach across the loss of memory. I’ve a friend whose mother could not speak toward the end of her life, but she could sing, and loved to sing with her family as she’s always done her whole life long. Another friend’s grandmother was lost in her mind to Alzheimer's and did not know her granddaughter at all -- until her granddaughter began to sing to her, a song they’d both loved when she was small. Then, for the space of the song, recognition and love returned past the gates of lost memory.

Singing to a child -- to an adult, too -- calms when nothing else will, establishes that connection of voice and melody which, while it may use words, important words, connects beyond their meaning. Further along this line of music and memory, how many times have you had a fragment of a tune or a verse of song bring back to you in vivid detail a place, a time, a person you’d not thought of in many a long day?

Music can help us remember, and it can help us understand and connect with what we remember. How has this happened for you?

To go along with these ideas

Pádraigín Ní Uallacháin: Songs of the Scribe

Kathy Mattea: Calling Me Home

Cathie Ryan: teaching tradition

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Music and forgiveness

 

Forgiveness: it is a circumstance that holds both past and present -- and at times, future -- and ways of finding balance among all those things. At times it’s necessary to forgive others, once and many times, and at times it is just as necessary to learn how to forgive one’s self. A place of peace, an open vista, room to grow, and a hard road, sometimes, to get there. It is a subject musicians deal with directly and indirectly, and music is often a good companion on the journey.

Music to go along with these ideas

Carrie Newcomer  Hush
Cathie Ryan Be Like the Sea
Carrie Newcomer  Before And After
Cathie Ryan In the Wishing Well
Bill Cooley Requiem for a Mountain


you may also wish to see
rest in music
cathie ryan: the farthest wave

photograph was made in Derry, Northern Ireland, and is copyrighted. thank you for respecting this

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Music and Mystery

How are songs and tunes constructed?

The are built with notes and scales, tone and rhythm and words, if you choose to use words. They come too from the breath and heart of those who play them, from ideas, from the connections which happen between singer and song, composer and sound, player and instrument. They come from what happens between musician and listener, and with how music is worn and burnished as it is passed from one person to another, from one generation to another. It cones from mystery.


These two photographs are what got me thinking about these ideas. The intricacy of the tree and the window and their contrasts, and the long view of mystery with mountains in mist. The tree and and window are in Fort William in the Western Highlands of Scotland, and the mountains are the Mournes in Northern Ireland.

Music to go along with these ideas
Cathie Ryan: Through Wind and Rain
history into song: capercaillie: glenfinnan
music, silence, and spiritual journey
Lovers' Well: Matt & Shannon Heaton

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Music and Challenging Times

Music, especially the sorts of music we talk of here along the music road, is a good companion in times of sorrow as well as times of joy, in times of sorting things out as well as times of confidence moving forward. The music we talk about here is diverse at times, butit holds in common threads of hope and threads of reflection, in hard times and happy ones.

There are many sad things going on in the world, and in our day to day lives, as well -- and many ways joy is present, as well. Let us remember the joy and comfort music brings in all sort of circumstance.

















music to go along with these ideas

Music for a midsummer's day
listening through the changes
Carrie Newcomer: Before & After
Seven Stories
cathie ryan: the farthest wave

speaking of finding hope in troubled times, you may like this video, too, which is courtesy of Mary Allen, America's Inner Peace Coach


Photographs are from Ireland, Scotland, and Canada, and are copyrighted. Thank you for respecting this.

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Thinking about songs: Eddi Reader and Moon River

Eddi Reader is a Scot, a native of Glasgow. Though she first rose to wide acclaim as the singer with the pop group Fairground Attraction while living in London, she eventually decided the land north of Hadrian’s Wall was calling her home.

There, Reader has found success both with writing her own music and in interpreting the songs of contemporary writers as well as those of Robert Burns. I’ve had the good fortune to interview her twice.

One of the points she made during those conversations was that she’s always thought of herself as a folk singer: she’s never lost that approach to seeking out and creating music that connects and really has something to say, holding this to be equally true through her days in London and her presenting of the songs of Robert Burns with orchestras.

That is one reason I was intrigued to come across this video of Eddi Reader singing Moon River. Sounds like it could be part of the folk tradition to me, just as at home in that place as it is on Broadway and in film.

you may also wish to see

eddi reader, willie stewart, and the search for haggis

Julie Fowlis:Uam

Eddi Reader sings more of the songs of Robert Burns

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Music, meditation, creation

Contemplative neuroscience -- it makes sense that such a discipline, which includes the study of brain function in people such as Buddhist monks and others who are known as world class meditators, would exist. It is a recent branch of the study of how the brain works, though, which I learned while listening to Krista Tippett interview scientist Richard Davidson for the program On Being..

As they were talking about the brains of monks, and of teaching children how and when to use meditative techniques, and noting that, as Davidson remarked, the word mediation is like the word sport in that it covers a lot of approaches and techniques, I was thinking about how meditation plays out in the practice of being an artist.

Creating a piece of music, interpreting another’s composition, writing a story, deciding how to play a character, making a photograph, or a painting, or a bowl or a quilt - -- acts of creation such as these are also meditation, I think. They are places where the contemplative and active strands of meditation twine into each other. Artists of all sorts often have practices of mediation as part of their daily lives, and as part of specific preparation, reflection, and thanksgiving before and after making something, as well.

Then there’s the whole communicative aspect of this creative meditation, as well: the effect the art has on the listener, viewer, and reader.


Music, meditation, creation, reflection -- all part of the well of creative practice.

Music to go along with these ideas

winter meditation: aine minogue
India to Indiana in song and image
Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen

and a thought about architecture as meditation
on Renfrew Street in Glasgow

A way to support Music Road: you could

If you enjoy what you are reading here, I've recently begun publishing an occasional newsletter at Substack with more stories about music, the people who make it, and the places which inspire it. Come visit and check it out!

From Scotland: Joy Dunlop & Twelfth Day

Fiere is a word in Scots which means friend or companion.

Fiere is also the title of a recording Scottish Gaelic singer Joy Dunlop and the two women who comprise the duo Twelfth Day, Catriona Price on fiddle and voice and Esther Swift on harp and voice, have made together.

A song from the tradition that arose from and honors friendship sparked the idea of the album for the three women. Faca sibh Ragnaill no Ailein? / Have you seen Ronald or Allan? is a waulking song, a song women would sing together to keep the rhythm of the work (and the conversation) going as they worked cloth. There’s a call and response aspect to waulking songs, and with this one, the singer starts out asking about others before getting around to the subject of the one she loves. In this version, it’s easy to hear the sound of centuries of connections and conversations among friends in the words and in the melody.

It makes an engaging opening track for a collection in which Dunlop and Twelfth Day take the languages of Scotland -- Scottish Gaelic, Scots, English, Shetland -- in directions which both honor tradition and extend it. The lyrics for the rest of the ten tracks are words from a range of Scottish women poets, set to melodies which the musicians have composed. There are stories of love and loss, discovery and friendship, of the moments of life which reach across time.



listen to the music from Fiere


Differing though shared backgrounds in traditional music and a willingness for exploring where tradition can go brought Dunlop and Twelfth Day together. Take the journey through this music with them. You’ll be well rewarded. Standout tracks include The Last Licht, Fiere, Coimhead Iad, and The Light Gatherer.

you may also wish to see
Julie Fowlis: Live at Perthsire Amber
Music for St Andrew's Day: music of Scotland
Mary Ann Kennedy & Na Seoid

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Music, inspiration, and landscape

Landscape and music often intertwine: the one inspires the other. That may come through sound, or horizon, or angle of light, it may be natural landscape or buildings or bridges. Other sorts of creativity -- poetry, prose, paining, photography, storytelling -- also come from our connection with the landscapes in which we live.






Have you a favorite piece of music which has to do with landscape?



music to go along with these ideas
India to Indiana in song and image
Appalachian and Celtic: Kyle Carey: Monongah
Cathie Ryan: the farthest wave

The photograph is of the Mourne Mountains in County Down, Northern Ireland, and is copyrighted. Thank you for respecting that.

you may also wish to see
Delicious Baby's Photo Friday, where travelers offer new insights to the world each Friday.

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Music and trust

How does trust show up in music?

All through the listening, performing, and making of music, when you stop to consider it.

As a performer, it’s an act of trust in those who have come to listen: that they will hear you, that you’ll connect with them, that they will listen. It is also an act of trust in yourself, that you have gifts to share, and that you will do your part in connecting with your listeners.



“I’m the same person on stage as I am off stage. When you’re on stage, you have to be yourself. You have to be authentic. If you’re not, audiences can tell that a mile off, and then you’ve lost them.” -- Irish American singer and songwriter Cathie Ryan



In writing music, in recording it and taking all the steps to get recordings released, you have to trust your own voice and commitment, and just as you do on stage, you have to trust others who work with you. You also have to trust those who listen.

“In songwriting, there’s a line between being true, and being too personal. My songs aren’t my diaries: I have my diaries for that. But I use the details of my own life, my own experiences, to find words and stories for experiences we both share, stories that people will recognize, and think ah, I’ve felt that way, but I didn't have the words for it.” -- Americana singer and songwriter Carrie Newcomer


As a listener, it is an act of trust to give time and attention to what a musician has to offer. It is also an act of trust to follow those ideas where they may lead, be that to contemplation, action, laughter, or maybe dancing -- it is an act of trust all around to let music move you.

“A good song is powerful -- three minutes, and you come out of it and know you see the world a little differently. It’s rearranged your DNA.” -- country and folk songwriter Gretchen Peters.


Over at her site Nancy Marmolejo. has been considering how trust and vulnerability show up in business when your business is being a coach or a mentor. Thanks to Nancy for the idea of exploring ways this plays out in music. As always, your comments are welcome.

you may also wish to see
music and telling the long story
music and meditation
Best Music, 2011

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Music, silence, and spiritual journey

Music and silence connect and intertwine and frame each other. They nurture each other, if you will.

I often find in my own creative practice that music is a doorway in to silence, that sort of interior silence which is both a spiritual discipline and a seedbed of creation.

Giving or receiving music, playing listening, that’s often true. I’ve a friend who when going though hard stuff in her life remarked that the only time she felt really clear and at peace was when she was on stage doing her music. Indeed, the music and the silence which goes along with it may be both a doorway and a home.

Musician Carrie Newcomer, whose work you may have met if you’ve walked here along the music road before, offers ideas on songwriting, spiritual practice, and why she goes to silent meeting for worship in this short video. Well worth your time.





you may also wish to see
Music Road: India to Indiana: Everything Is Everywhere from Carrie Newcomer
Music Road: Music of Ireland: Songs of the Scribe
Music Road: silence and music: Ireland
Music Road: rest in music
Music Road: Music, harvest, and time

A quick way to support Music Road: you could

If you enjoy what you are reading here, I've recently begun publishing an occasional newsletter at Substack with more stories about music, the people who make it, and the places which inspire it. Come visit and check it out!

Songs for Valentine's Day

Love finds expression in all sorts of ways in song. In honor of Valentine’s day and season, here are several songs about love you may not have heard. The links from the titles will take you to places where you may hear snippets of each song.

If you’re feeling that Valentine’s Day is getting a bit overdone, or that you’re a bit done with all the hearts and flowers stuff, consider the ideas about the day as a celebration of generosity, dignity, and kindness in this inspiring article from Alisa Bowman’s blog Project: Happily Ever After.

The music:

Trust, holding on in uncertainty, and being open are aspects of love, ideas which are gracefully and poetically explored by Carrie Newcomer in Hush.

In day to day life as well as with family and friends, we do not always know, as Newcomer says in her song Stones In The River, where our best intentions go. At home and in the wider world, it works to keep working on the good intentions, though. This song makes an especially good companion to the ideas in Bowman’s article, above.

In many parts of the world it is quite cold, and definitely still winter, this Valentine’s Day. Though she wrote it about the December holidays, Shannon Heaton’s song Fine Winter's Night fits with cold February nights, as well -- cold night skies and the warmth of the hearth drawing us in work all through the winter season.

Kathy Mattea’s Asking Us To Dance is a gentle, romantic reminder that love persists, and we need to honor that and make time for it.

The lasting and renewing aspects of love, hope, and connection are all found in Cathie Ryan’s thoughtful version of Somewhere Along The Road, a song filled with trust and grace. Just right of Valentine’s Day.


you may also wish to see
Music Road: Carrie Newcomer: Before & After
Music Road: Cathie Ryan: teaching tradition
and just in case you were wanting a Valentine's treat here's a Chocolate Apricot Cheesecake recipe from My Kids Eat Squid

-->If you'd like to support my creative work,
here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this.Thank you.