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Jan. 22nd, 2010 07:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
daibhidcI keep meaning to write a bit about BBC Two's A Scottish Songbook at Celtic Connections on Monday. It was ... mixed.
I missed the start - Mum said it was all songs she'd never heard of, performed by people she'd never heard of. When I came through Lorraine Macintosh of Deacon Blue was singing "The Freedom Come A' Ye". And ... I'm not sure she got it. Maybe it's just me (although Mum agrees), but it's a beautiful, angry song, and she was singing it like it was a love song or something. And I'm sure she sung the second half of the second verse again, instead of the second half of the third verse.
The next one was much better: a song called "The Errant Apprentice" written and performed by Andy M Stewart and Gerry O'Beirne[1], which was a version of the standard folk song plot "I joined the army to impress a girl, and while I was fighting the Boers she married someone else", but clearly written more recently and with some lovely turns of phrase (it has two rhymes for "scimitar", just because), and a moral Rincewind would approve of:
There's many things worth trying for,
And occasionally worth lying for,
But there's bugger all worth dying for,
So I'll stick to the single life.
Then we got a girl called Siobhan Miller and a gospel choir doing their best with Annie Lennox's "A Thousand Beautiful Things". It's an okay song, I suppose, but very, very Eighties. (Yes, I know it was released in 2004. I stand by that statement.) Then the house band did John Martyn's "One For The Road", which was excellent; it's one of those songs where you can't decide if it's rock or folk, and eventually conclude it doesn't matter.
Then another political song: "The Jute Mill Song" sung by Ewan Maclennan, who did know what it was about, and took the time to explain it first. For all the show was billed as a celebration of 200 years of Scottish music, I think this was the only song from more than 60 years ago. And it was awesome.
And then there was Kenny "King Creosote" Anderson singing "Cod Liver Oil And Orange Juice". Now he did seem to be angry about something. Which was surprising, because he was singing a bawdy song based on the same Glesga patter as Francie & Josie. A very strange way of doing it, but oddly hypnotic. Maybe he should have done "The Freedom Come A' Ye"...
Siobhan Miller again, singing "Long Hellos and Short Goodbyes", by Davy Steele (of the Battlefield Band) which I'm sure is very good, but just isn't my sort of music. But then we got Kris Drever singing "Song For Yesterday" by his father Ivan Dreiver (of Wolfstone), and that was great[2].
Then, to cheer things up a bit, we had Karine Polwart (also of the Battlefield Band) singing Gallagher and Lyle's "Stay Young". And to finish off, Ricky Ross and Lorraine Macintosh (i.e. half of Deacon Blue) singing the Proclaimers "Sunshine on Leith". Which was brilliant.
So a very mixed programme, with some excellent moments, but not really reflective of 200 years of Scottish song, which is what the blurb said. Mind you, it also said B.A. Robertson was in it, and he wasn't.
[1}More people we hadn't heard of, but this time we'll be looking out for them in future.
[2]Interesting that there were two sad, quiet songs in a row, but one of them was "my kind of music" and the other wasn't...
I missed the start - Mum said it was all songs she'd never heard of, performed by people she'd never heard of. When I came through Lorraine Macintosh of Deacon Blue was singing "The Freedom Come A' Ye". And ... I'm not sure she got it. Maybe it's just me (although Mum agrees), but it's a beautiful, angry song, and she was singing it like it was a love song or something. And I'm sure she sung the second half of the second verse again, instead of the second half of the third verse.
The next one was much better: a song called "The Errant Apprentice" written and performed by Andy M Stewart and Gerry O'Beirne[1], which was a version of the standard folk song plot "I joined the army to impress a girl, and while I was fighting the Boers she married someone else", but clearly written more recently and with some lovely turns of phrase (it has two rhymes for "scimitar", just because), and a moral Rincewind would approve of:
There's many things worth trying for,
And occasionally worth lying for,
But there's bugger all worth dying for,
So I'll stick to the single life.
Then we got a girl called Siobhan Miller and a gospel choir doing their best with Annie Lennox's "A Thousand Beautiful Things". It's an okay song, I suppose, but very, very Eighties. (Yes, I know it was released in 2004. I stand by that statement.) Then the house band did John Martyn's "One For The Road", which was excellent; it's one of those songs where you can't decide if it's rock or folk, and eventually conclude it doesn't matter.
Then another political song: "The Jute Mill Song" sung by Ewan Maclennan, who did know what it was about, and took the time to explain it first. For all the show was billed as a celebration of 200 years of Scottish music, I think this was the only song from more than 60 years ago. And it was awesome.
And then there was Kenny "King Creosote" Anderson singing "Cod Liver Oil And Orange Juice". Now he did seem to be angry about something. Which was surprising, because he was singing a bawdy song based on the same Glesga patter as Francie & Josie. A very strange way of doing it, but oddly hypnotic. Maybe he should have done "The Freedom Come A' Ye"...
Siobhan Miller again, singing "Long Hellos and Short Goodbyes", by Davy Steele (of the Battlefield Band) which I'm sure is very good, but just isn't my sort of music. But then we got Kris Drever singing "Song For Yesterday" by his father Ivan Dreiver (of Wolfstone), and that was great[2].
Then, to cheer things up a bit, we had Karine Polwart (also of the Battlefield Band) singing Gallagher and Lyle's "Stay Young". And to finish off, Ricky Ross and Lorraine Macintosh (i.e. half of Deacon Blue) singing the Proclaimers "Sunshine on Leith". Which was brilliant.
So a very mixed programme, with some excellent moments, but not really reflective of 200 years of Scottish song, which is what the blurb said. Mind you, it also said B.A. Robertson was in it, and he wasn't.
[1}More people we hadn't heard of, but this time we'll be looking out for them in future.
[2]Interesting that there were two sad, quiet songs in a row, but one of them was "my kind of music" and the other wasn't...
