Love Songs, Love Stories

Love is an eternal source of inspiration for artists. Here are five stories about romatic love you may not have heard, or may enjoy hearing again. The stories come with recognition that love holds its own challenges, of varied sorts.

The singer in Fear a Bhàta is waiting for her boatman to come home. That’s not an uncommon theme in songs from older times when, really, nobody knew if a loved one would return, for all sorts of reasons. In this song it is mot clear if th weather, the dangers of the work, or the possibility of change of heart are on the woman’s mind, but nonetheless, the longing is clear, even if Scottish Gaelic is not your language. Karen Matheson sings it here, with the band Capercaillie. You may find it recorded on their album The Blood is Strong. This video was recorded at a concert during the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow.

Tha mo Geal a Aird a Chuain/My Love is on the High Seas, is also a song of waiting for a man who works on the waters to return. This one has a bit of a more defined ending, though, which Julie Fowlis, who sings it here, talks about in the clip. The baby Julie is cradling in the story is a big girl now, but it is still a lovley way to see and ehar the song presented. You may find it on the album Mar a tha Mo Chride/ As My Heart Is.

There’s a swirl of hope, a challenging of invitation, a suggestion of strength, of passion, of the power of love in the face of heartbreak and danger; a lot going on in a few short minutes of the song What’s Closest to the Heart. Cathie Ryan sings it, and she also wrote the song. You may find it on her album The Farthest Wave.

At Valentine’s Day and beyond, may you.enjoy celebrating love through these songs.

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You may also wish to explore
Capercaillie:At the Heart of It All
Cathie Ryan: Through Wind and Rain
Music for a New Year at Wandering Educators
Seven Ways to Explore Scotland through Music at Perceptive Travel

Love Songs, Love Stories

Love: it is a source of endless reflection, conversation, story, at all times of the year. In the depths of winter love stories are often spun in form of song, shared and told and sung around and passed along again, as the lives and loves of those who handed them on to us join in from the shadows and as we add our own new love songs to the mix. Romantic love (it is near Valentine’s Day as I write) is an endless subject for musicians. They turn their thoughts to other aspects of love as well.

Mairead Ni Mhaoniagh grew up in Donegal, in the far northwest of the island of Ireland. One of her earliest music teachers there was her father Francie Mooney, himself an accomplished fiddler as well as a playwright and man who loved the sea. When her father died, two of Mairead’s friends wrote a song they hoped would help her. Named for a place on the far western edge of Donegal’s coast, it is called Far Beyond Carrickfinn. Mairead recorded it with Altan on their album called The Widening Gyre.

Eddi Reader is a native Scot. For many years though she lived and followed her career in music south of Hadrian’s Wall down in England. Her friend John Douglas -- now her husband -- thought she really belonged back in Scotland. One of the things he did to help her see this idea was write a song called Wild Mountainside. A love song to country and to woman both, you could say. Reader put the song on her album Songs of Robert Burns to show, she says, that great poetry and song are still flourishing in Scotland. It stands just fine in the company.

One snowy winter night, Carrie Newcomer was driving back to her home in Indiana after being away on tour. As she traveled she was taken by seeing lights in the windows of homes set back from the road, lights sent out by people she would never know and yet which lighted her path in more ways than one. She wrote a song drawing on where those thoughts led her called, unsurprisingly, A Light in the Window. Newcomer has recorded the song on her album called A Permeable Life.

Cathie Ryan gives a graceful and understated yet warm and welcoming voice to Rick Kemp's song of connection Somewhere Along the Road. She has recorded it on her album Somewhere Along the Road. A recognition of change and the continuing strength of connection.

Love songs for many situations and seasons....

Photographs by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

You may also wish to see
Cara Dillon: A Thousand Hearts
Cathie Ryan: Through Wind and Rain
Music and Mystery: Conversation with Carrie Newcomer

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music of love

Love is the substance of all music, when you stop to think about it. Songs of love gone wrong and gone right in all sorts of ways, love for land, home, country, family, children, friends, love of tradition and family that keeps the music going on, and music that may not speak directly of these things but is brought into being by them. As I write this it is a time of year when love is celebrated especially. Here’s music to go along with celebrating all these sorts of love.

Romantic love is the substance of Someone Like You, sung by award winning country, folk, and Americana artist Emmylou Harris. A few of my favorite lines are
I never wasted a minute of my time
Every road I ever took led me to your side

Robert Burns, Scotland’s bard, wrote of aspects of love from romantic to bawdy to friendship. John Anderson My Jo finds the poet considering love that lasts across the years. Fellow Scot Eddi Reader does a fine and thoughtful job with it

Love between parents and children is the subject of December Child from Gretchen Peters and Mo Níon Ó from Cathie Ryan

Celebration of the many gifts of friendship is what Carrie Newcomer considers in The Gathering of Spirits
there’s a gathering of spirits
there’s a festival of friends
and we’ll take up where we left off
when we all meet again

Sharing love for land and home place is well told in At the Heart of It All from Capercaillie.
At the heart of it all
Is a calling to this land...

At times, love is shown with no words at at all. Molly Mason’s composition The Snowstorm is music of that sort I especially commend to you.

Blessing is a deep form of love, and so I will draw this to a close by suggesting that you take a listen to Cathie Ryan’s choice of a song of blessing, May the Road Rise to Meet You

Each of these artists well knows how to write and to interpret all sorts of love songs, so I commend to you the albums on which this music appears, and their other works, as well. At this season of love, also, I wish you love, joy, and peace -- and great music..

Did you notice the heart in the photograph? I saw it in the reflection whilst at a gig at the Piping Centre in Glasgow, Scotland. This photograph is copyrighted, and I thank you for respecting this.

you may also wish to see
music and mystery
Cathie Ryan: Through Wind and Rain

-->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.

music and love

Love songs without words -- that’s what Jay Ungar and Molly Mason offer from most of the tracks on their recording Lovers' Waltz. Ungar plays fiddle, Mason guitar, bass and keyboards. The tile track, an original tune, is a a graceful evocation of the dance of love in in turns and travels. That was the centerpiece when the couple began to gather music for the album.

They have joined it with music from the Klezmer tradition, a Fats Waller song, A waltz from Finland, a Cajun two step, an Irish air, a bit of swing, and a tune that was played at their own wedding. The music comprises a narrative of sorts of the course of a romance. Whatever circumstance you might have in your own life, Mason and Ungar’s work here will offer you reflection both quiet and lively to go along.

You might also like to give a listen to Cathie Ryan’s take on Kate Rusby’s song Walk the Road, a story of friendship, love and encouragement.

You may also wish to check out
Lovers' Well: Matt and Shannon Heaton
a bouquet of Celtic love songs and tunes
Favorite Love Songs

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Three songs for Valentine's Day

Loving hearts, seeking hearts, hurting hearts, hearts wide open, hearts reconciled, hearts and flowers: it’s Valentine season. Three songs to listen to as you prepare and enjoy your celebrations:

Scotland’s national bard, Robert Burns, wrote dozens and dozens of songs about love, funny, bawdy, serious, heartfelt. Eddi Reader has recorded many of them including Ae Fond Kiss. My Love is Like a Red Red Rose, and John Anderson My Jo. Good ones all. On her album Eddi Reader sings more of the songs of Robert Burns she also chose to record a contemporary song, Wild Mountainside, by John Douglas.

It’s a fine look at longing, change, trust, and homecoming. all framed it touches of the Scottish landscape. It will work to illuminate love whatever landscape happens to be your place at the moment.


Cathie Ryan draws in images of nature and weather in her song What’s Closest to the Heart, as well, framing a journey of trust, questions, and acceptance in swirling melody driven by John Doyle’s guitar and laced by John McCusker’s fiddle. It is a song that may have you tapping your feet even as you consider the images and questions in English and Irish that Ryan offers. A fine and perhaps a bit unexpected companion to the season of hearts and flowers, you’ll find the song on Ryan's album The Farthest Wave.


Indiana based songwriter Carrie Newcomer looks at love, trust, connection, and staying true in her song Hush. It’s a reflective piece which takes a quiet look at the strength of love beyond the first days of romance - as indeed do Ryan’s and Reader’s songs as well. You will find Hush on Newcomer’s album
Before & After.





you may also wish to see
eddi reader, willie stewart, and the search for haggis
Lovers' Well: Matt & Shannon Heaton

-->Music Road is reader supported: 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.

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