Challenge The Celtic Song Challenge|All New Songs Now Claimed

Now presenting: The Song of the Day.

There are--as you will note from the mini-roulette post further up this page--four songs left that have never yet been chosen by the will of the die. I was just thinking that it was unfortunate that I haven't been able to share them here with the thread through lyrics and videos, and then I realized there was no reason I couldn't do just that.

Every day, I will post the lyrics and videos for one of the remaining unchosen songs. And of course, should that status change, I will edit that into the post.

Enough ado--let's move on to the first song.

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I shall begin with "As I roved out/Night Visit." Once again, we have a kriffslider--although this one just believes in taking off after a one-night stand with intentions to return and marry the girl "when broken shells make Christmas bells." (In other words: See ya!)

Lyrics

Videos:

Spoiler

Planxty (with Christy Moore on vocals):


Loreena McKennitt:

 

The Song of the Day

Our second song is "The Star of the County Down." To describe this one, I shall channel Carly Rae Jepsen: I saw you in passing/and this is crazy/but I want to marry you/so call me maybe.

Lyrics

Videos:

Spoiler

The Pogues:


Loreena McKennitt:


Van Morrison and The Chieftains:

 

The Song of the Day

Today's song is "As I Roved Out." Yes, another song going by that title showed up very recently on this thread--but the resemblances between the two songs pretty much end there. This young man wanted to marry for love--but as was often the case, he wound up marrying elsewhere for more pragmatic reasons. Oh yes, true love ruled in song and sonnet and story in those days, but (as I have heard at least several thousand times in as many historical accuracy lectures) in real life people did not tend to marry for such silly reasons as loooove--it was all practical financial and political alliances. Hey, fine, mayhap we should be more like them.

Of course, this is still a ballad, and the young man regrets his marriage to the "lassie who has the land." He regrets it very, very much.

Lyrics

Videos:

Spoiler

Planxty (with Andy Irvine on vocals):


June Tabor:


Loreena McKennitt:


Andy Irvine:

 

This version reminds me of my teens.



And some more songs, by the same band. I'd go on their annual St. Patrick's Day show, but Chinawoman performs on the same day, so I have to make some hard choices and pick my favourite Canadian Russian Jewish lesbian instead.

Spoiler

The only song where the beautiful violin player sings on:

 

Ewok Poet: Thanks for sharing. Actually, I considered posting that video in the post for "The Star of the County Down;" I hadn't heard of the group before, but it came up as the very first video result when I did a google search. (That might be because of the reference to Belgrade--there is a town with that same name in my state, and local results, even confused ones, tend to float to the top.)

And yes: if anyone else has any videos they would like to share, I do hope you consider yourselves encouraged to do so.

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Song of the Day

Our fourth, and final, daily song, is "I Never Will Marry." It might sound like a feminist declaration of independence, but I have to tell you that it is not: it's all very well to declare you'll remain unmarried for the rest of your life when you're in the process of drowning yourself over a man, and that life has only minutes remaining.

Lyrics

Videos:

Spoiler

Linda Ronstadt and Johnny Cash:


Heather Dale:


Kristen Hersh:

 

so i finally have a hint of a hint of a hint of an idea for this, so i'll see where it goes and if anything coherent can come from it. but it'll probably be a little while before i get to this.

 

Pandora - That was a...curious description of a filter bubble that has NOTHING to do with politics, but still weird. I understand that Google will provide non-biased results only through its Incognito mode (and not always), but showing all these fake Belgrades instead of the #1 100% genuine real deal...tut-tut.

 

I'm not sure I should do this...But there is a good story possibility in a minor character from Canon/Legends...If anyone wants to read a story about a Naboo poet.

Can I be assigned a random number?

 

A Naboo poet story would be fantastic! I'm all for minor characters getting their due.

Here's the mini-roulette of the five remaining songs, and I can roll you a die:
EDIT: Looks like you got "The Star of the County Down." The text and video is linked above in post 102, and there's another video in post 104. Enjoy!

 

Oh, you're lucky, lucky, lucky!

 

Ewok Poet: If I type "Belgrade" into the search engine box, it instantly offers results for this particular "fake" one, which happens to be in my state of residence. (No, I have never been there--the closest I have gotten is the turn-off signs on the interstate; so it isn't for me to defend its honor.) I don't actually know if filtering for local results accounts for the prominent first spot for the Orthodox Celts' video in my search, but I do think it is a bit odd that it beat out versions by better known artists, such as Van Morrison, to get there.

Back to business: I see that "The Star of the County Down" has finally been chosen by the whims of the die. That means that there are now only four songs remaining. But: we have been considering adding several more songs to the list, given how popular this challenge has been, so stay tuned.

 

so, google filters results based on more than a few things, location being one of them. it also looks at the history of your particular searches, and tries to match it to some degree, depending on how it relates to what you are searching/have searched.

then there's the minor detail that they do actually censor their results as well. it was especially apparent during the election. you could go to yahoo, or bing, and type in the name hillary clinton, and on those you'd have a large number of things related to crimes or indictments. on google you got nothing but positive results. donald trump was the exact reverse. i tested this myself, on all of the search engines i could find, and google was literally the only one to return those results.

my conclusion on this is that google is not precisely trustworthy... and the results you get are probably not going to be the same results that someone else gets.

 

I'm a web developer and you cannot possibly imagine how stressful it used to be to explain my clients this before everybody and their mother discovered the concept of filter bubbles. I was like "No, you can't be the first on Google if you're a locksmith in Belgrade, but your website will show up to potential clients." He was like "Huh? Me want be first!111111!!!!!!"

All this aside, if there are multiple small towns in USA sharing the name of a capital of another country and a fairly *large* city, it should come first for the purpose of...well, general knowledge?!

 

For what this is worth, I just did a google search on "Belgrade"--and the actual results on the first page all refer to the Serbian capital (which does indeed, as I suspected, have a population larger than that of my entire state)--but then on the second page, results for the town of that name in Montana, and another one in Maine, show up. I don't know if there are others, but (as you may know) it is not uncommon for towns in the US to be named for European cities--Athens, Georgia is just one of the better known examples.

But this has gotten off-topic, so if you want to discuss the matter further, we should move it to PM.

 

oh good, my understanding of the whole thing is actually accurate.

yea, i can see how that would be more than mildly annoying.

 

Yeah, my last word on this will be that I might end up using your explanation for future clients - because it does not contain techbabble, yet it makes sense.

Anyway - working on the second part of my official challenge entry. The CREEPY one.

 

well, wouldn't have made another comment on this save, i give you my blessing to use it Ewok Poet.

so... i've had an idea for tam lin, though i'm not sure how... short it'll be. at all. the idea is kind of mash-uppy, like transposing SWs characters into ancient ireland. or... something like that.

 

Pandora so, i have a question. am i limited to a single response to this song, or could i do say, two or three? i have a few ideas that i think could be interesting.

 

A Blind Prophet: I hadn't even thought of that possibility. But no, I see no reason to limit the number of responses--so if you have several ideas you want to play with for your song, go for it.

 

thank ye, depending on how one of the ideas i have goes, i may have a couple songs then.

 

Had to shake my head over this...if I was the true love, I'd be saying "Sorry, Charley-O, you had your chance. Don't think I'm going to be your piece on the side!"

Are there any left? Anyone tackling multiples? (I'm not volunteering myself, you understand; my own story is now like three times as long as I thought and I'm STILL writing it!)



It goes to show, though, that the themes of the stories, the tropes or whatever, still have power today. Some things are universal and timely...

 

Mistress_Renata: Let us just say that she's not exactly happy to see him.

And yes, there are still four songs left--and if anyone is interested in rolling for a second song, feel free to do so. (And yes, given that I haven't started on my own story, I understand perfectly if you don't feel up to it.)

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Anyhow: I have a song by Andy Irvine (who shows up in a few of the videos earlier on this page) I would like to share with the thread. While most of the songs in the roulette have been of the traditional sort, this is a modern song: Irvine wrote it about American folk icon Woody Guthrie. Yes, it is somewhat political, but I don't think it is exactly a radical statement to say that fascists are bad. And yes, it is absolutely necessary to include that verse: Woody Guthrie famously had writ on his guitar "This machine kills fascists."

Without further ado--

Spoiler

 

That was wonderful, thank you for sharing.

 

I'm pleased to announce that I've completed and posted my official challenge entry:

Graceful as Water

 

Lá fhéile Pádraig sona dhuit!