Been Tagged with the Music meme:

[capri0mni]

Actually been tagged twice, first by drox (who asked for six songs) and then by gordon_r_d (who asked for five). Let's see how many I can come up with, shall we? I haven't been listening to a lot music, lately. But there are songs that are sort of there in the core of my memory, and self identity, if you know what I mean.

List 6 (or 5) songs, with artists, that currently mean a lot to you (the first couple are "folk songs" that aren't assoiciated with any particular artist, and are just ones that I sing to myself when I am in the mood).

[Edit: I am also pimping these songs, and including links where I can find them, because I think people should sing out loud and together much more than they do. In public even. If we meet, someday in the future, I may even sing these songs at you (All except #6). Out loud and in public. Forewarned is forearmed.]

1) The Bonnie Lass of Anglesey:

"There's fifteen lords come a swaggering down
To dance and gain the victory
There's fifteen lords and one high king
Go ragged and bare today."

Gotta love it. This ballad should be turned into a children's book. (I can't sing it that high -- have to go a twelve steps lower, which puts it in another key)

2) Down in the Valley. I learned one verse that doesn't show up on that webpage:

"If you don't love me, love whom you please.
Throw your arms 'round me, give my heart ease.
Give my heart ease, Dear. Give my heart ease.
Throw your arms 'round me, give my heart ease."

Aww....

3) The Water is Wide. This is slightly different than the version I know and sing, and in a different key. But the first two verses are the same, pretty much"

"The water is wide, I cannot get o'er
Neither have I wings to fly
Give me a boat that can carry two
And both shall row, my love and I

A ship there is and she sails the sea
She's loaded deep as deep can be
But not so deep as the love I'm in
I know not if I sink or swim"

4) Swimming to the Other Side" Pat Humphries (May, 2002 NPR report, with links to real media files of differnent versions of the song):

"We are livin' 'neath the great Big Dipper
We are washed by the very same rain
We are swimmin' in the stream together,
Some in power, and some in pain
We can worship this ground we walk on,
Cherishing the beings that we live beside.
Loving spirirts will live forever
We're all swimming to the other side."

5) "A Sailor's Prayer" by Rod McDonald, cover by Gordon Bok, forget which album

"I will not lay me down, this rain a-raging.
I will not lie me down, in such a storm
And if this night be unblessed,
I shall not take my rest
Until we reach another shore."

...Sang this a lot (out loud, and in public) to get through the day when I was in grad school, and Mom was home dying from breast cancer... Once, some cafeteria worker overheard me, and commented in an aside to someone else that I was always so cheerful... oh, the irony...

6) (the most "commercial" of the list... you may already know it) "Spirit voices" Paul Simon, on Rhythm of the Saints, but it's a close tie with all the songs on that one...

Comments

[snowgrouse.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU SO MUCH! For the Pat Humphries link. I have that song playing right now, and I love it with all my heart.

*Hugs you*

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

*Hugs you back*

Yeah, I have that song permentantly bookmarked. If I play it when I'm depressed, it always cheers me up.

It gives me hope for the human race. First, because a human wrote it, and Second because other humans can recognize its spirit as true.

*Gets all giggly-tearful, just thinking about it.*