Fields of Athenry

[ciroccoj]

We've got 7 confirmations so far for the birthday party. And we've got the cakes ordered, and I'm buying their presents on Friday, and I'll be able to spend Friday making our house generally presentable. I hope.

• Contracts readings
  
• Property readings
  
• call Debbie
  
• call Bourke's
  
• Karen
  
• PSE, iterum, stars challenge
  
• calendar
  
• tidy
  
• choir stuff
  
• laundry
  
• pix
  
• make up menu

In other news, I got a link to some of the songs we're rehearsing for my choir's February concert, from recordings done by other choirs. For anyone interested, it's at:

http://www.harmoniachoir.com/rehearsalmusic.html

and the song list is:

Rise Up My Love - OK.
I Beheld Her - OK.
Sing We and Chant It - Well done, but it's a madrigal and thus makes my skin crawl.
I Will Not Leave You Comfortless - OK.
Fair Phyliss - Again, madrigal :(
Can't Buy Me Love - John Lennon spins in his grave. Avoid, avoid, avoid. :P
And So it Goes - Pretty good adaptation of Billy Joel's song. Skip the first 1:03 minutes, it's spoken intro.
Fields of Athenry - Beautiful and heartbreaking. My favourite piece.
When the Stars Fall - Very simple and reverent. My second favourite piece.
Despairing Lover - This is actually pretty funny in a deliberately melodramatic way.
Soldier, Soldier - This one's cute ;)

It's not a comprehensive list, but it includes my two favourite songs, so I'm one happy choir geek right about now :)


Fields of Athenry

By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young girl calling,
Michael they are taking you away.
For you stole Trevelyn's corn
so the young might see the morn,
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.

Chorus:
Low lie the fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly
Our love was on the wing,
We had dreams and songs to sing,
It's so lonely round the fields of Athenry

By a lonely prison wall
I heard a young man calling,
Nothing matters Mary when you're free
Against the Famine and the Crown
I rebelled, they ran me down
Now you must raise our child in dignity.

Chorus

By a lonely harbour wall
She watched the last star falling,
As that prison ship sailed out against the sky
Sure she'll wait and hope and pray
For her love in Botany Bay
It's so lonely round the fields of Athenry

Chorus 2x



When the Stars Fall

When the sea shakes, then I trust my saviour.
When the sea breaks, still I trust my saviour.
And if the sea crumbles into rust,
tumbles into dust,
yet will I trust
my saviour.

When the stars call, then I trust my saviour.
When the stars fall, still I trust my saviour.
And if the stars crumble into rust,
tumble into dust,
yet will I trust
my saviour.

When my heart sighs, then I trust my saviour.
When my heart cries, still I trust my saviour.
And if my heart crumbles into rust,
tumbles into dust,
yet will I trust
my saviour.

Later Edit: ::snicker:: I just realized that my two favourite songs are by Canadian choral composers, Mark Sirret from Kingston and Stephen Hatfield from BC, respectively. Wonder if my choir director heard me whining about the general appalling crappiness of Canadian choral composers and decided to show me what's what ;)

Comments

[lonejaguar.livejournal.com]

We did a lot of Steven Hatfield in choir... I'll be damned if I can remember any of it, though.

[jenniferjames.livejournal.com]

We've got 7 confirmations so far for the birthday party.

Oh, joy. I'll send you Tylenol via FedEx...

:-) Have fun!

[tudorlady.livejournal.com]

Hey, she can get Tylenol *with codiene* *over the counter* up there. Maybe she can send some to *us*??

xoxo to all -- and best wishes for surviving a kids party.
Medee

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

Hey, she can get Tylenol *with codiene* *over the counter* up there.

Really? Cool!

I have Tylenol with codeine, but it's a prescription. Wonder why. Maybe so my drug plan would pay for it.

And oh, my, yes, I plan to be drugged to the gills on Saturday ;)

Adventures with Tylenol

[tudorlady.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time, in a province far, far away, I was -uh- dating this really, really *really* cute Canadian guy. He was the equivalent of a licensed paramedic (not sure if they're called something different there), though his real thing was search and rescue. That's from who (whom?) I discovered this little secret. I occasionally have horrific migraines, and had one while I happened to be in Vancouver. You have to ask for the stuff at the pharmacy counter, but I was able to buy a huge bottle of "318" from the local London Drug (not sure if that's a provincial or national chain) for under $10 US. This was in the early/mid '90s, things may have changed.

Alas. Cute Canadian Guy got offered some sort of search and rescue gig up in Terrace, BC, which is 'way the hell away. Not like I was expecting anything to come out of it or anything, but he was lots of fun, and I really sorta dug hanging out with a guy who was rather frequently - and **I am not making this up** - mistaken for Tom Cruise trying to go incognito. We never waited more than ten seconds for a table in a restaurant, no matter how crowded it was. ("Right this way, Mr. -uh- 'White'.")

Anyhow. Because of David, I know where to get the hard stuff. And yes, my guess is that you have an Rx so that the health plan will cover it... happens here all of the time.

Man. I want to go get lost in Northern BC, just so they'd send him to find me.

[minnesota-anne.livejournal.com]

I hope your sons have a very happy birthday.

And I hope the tylenol jenniferjames sends will take care of your headache after it's over. :)

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

I'm interested: what is it about madrigals that makes you dislike them so much?

[ciroccoj.livejournal.com]

I don't know... they just really, really rub me the wrong way. And what rubs me the wrongest is that most choir folk adore them, so I end up singing a lot of them. It's like trying to be a vegetarian at Papa Pete's Steakhouse ;)

Hm... I'm trying to figure out what it is that bothers me specifically. I guess they just sound too 'clever' to me - like instead of writing a piece of music to celebrate beauty or whatever, the composer decided to show just how intricate and detailed he could be. How clever at making the different parts play with each other, echo each other, do variations on a theme... it just seems rather pointless as anything other than a demonstration of cleverness.

Also, the lyrics are often full of bizarre affectations, and for some inexplicable reason choirs always end up singing madrigals with fake British accents. Gives me hives. I might not hate them as much if I lived in England ;)

[sangerin.livejournal.com]

~nods~

That makes sense - the "too clever" part. I love them myself, but then, Mom is in a group that sings only madrigals and other early music (Bach is as late as they go), so I think she's passed that love on to me. And then, they're pre-Baroque but post-Polyphonic (*dredges the last sceriks of musicology out of her brain*), which is one of my favourite periods.