Welcome to Letters From Quotidia, the Postcards edition, number 5, a podcast by Quentin Bega where you will hear Banter, a traditional Irish folk group from Sydney’s outer west, present four tunes and songs drawn from the traditions of the English-speaking world. And, as always, Quotidia is that space, that place, where ordinary people lead ordinary lives. But where, from time to time, they encounter the extraordinary.
The Lark in the Morning– There is a song with this title which we will get around to recording at some stage, but here is an instrumental that has the sort of energy we like and which always enlivens a session when we gather to bash a few numbers out, have a few soothing ales and shoot the breeze. Our fiddle player gives it some welly and we all charge in too. There is something particularly satisfying about playing Irish music at full tilt.
The Patriot Game was written by Dominic Behan to the tune of an Irish traditional song, The Merry Month of May . Its narrator is Fergal O’Hanlon, who was a member of an IRA team who attacked the RUC barracks at Brookeborough, Co. Fermanagh on New Year’s Day, 1957. He, along with Sean South from Limerick, was killed; also killed in the attack was a young Catholic constable, John Scalley. I sang the song many years ago at a pub in western Sydney and a couple of blokes there objected to the “IRA song”. Yet, I view the song as an example of the tragic deaths fuelled by love of country, particularly of young men. Interestingly, Christy Moore notes that the song is often requested at his gigs by British soldiers. Dominic Behan once, in a phone conversation, furiously berated Bob Dylan who had used the song as a template for his composition, With God On Our Side. Dylan suggested that their lawyers should meet to discuss the situation. Behan retorted that he only had two lawyers, and they were at the end of his wrists. The version I sing retains the slighting reference to the first Irish President, Eamon de Valera, but omits the verse that justifies the killing of police officers. Yes, it is a controversial song, but, IMHO, worth singing, nevertheless.
The City of Chicago written by Christy Moore’s brother, Luka Bloom, is a firm favourite among listeners. The Irish have many bastions in the US: Chicago, Boston, and New York, to name just a few. And, as in England, the Irish were instrumental in building the infrastructure that helped propel the Industrial Age that set the United States at the top of the heap. As members, ourselves, of the Irish diaspora, songs like this have an added resonance for us.
Sweet Thames Flow Softly. I first heard the song in the early 70s from Planxty’s eponymous first album and determined to learn the song, adding an instrumental verse on Spanish guitar. Only last year, I re-visited the song with its instrumental adornment with the group, Banter. Here, though, is a Band-in-a-Box backing track with vocal. Who knows when we will be able to stand in front of a crowd (remember those times?) and do the band treatment of the ballad? Robert Herrick’s 17thC poems say:life is short, the world is beautiful, love is splendid, and we must use the short time we have to make the most of it. And he wrote that sentiment in lines we still recognise four centuries later: Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, /Old Time is still a-flying; /And this same flower that smiles today/ Tomorrow will be dying.// The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,/ The higher he’s a-getting,/ The sooner will his race be run,/ And nearer he’s to setting. I like to speculate that Ewan McColl was thinking of these lines when he wrote this song.
The Thames is one of the great rivers of the world, even though it is not very long in comparison the big rivers of this earth. It has history, romance, stories and poems galore, not to mention that it flows through London. Several times I have looked down on the bridges and Parliament as I have flown in to one or other of the big airports and never failed but be moved at the sight. Edmund Spenser the Elizabethan poet, in his poem, Prothalamion, ends each of the verses with the line, Sweet Thames flow softly till I end my song. T. S. Eliot, references this line in his modernist masterpiece, The Waste Land. Now, McColl’s song has been covered by many, many artists of note: but will that stop me from putting my cover out there among such elevated company? Nah, at my age I have grown a hide that compares favourably to that of the rhinoceros, another creature threatened with extinction. Anyway, have a listen to my version of Sweet Thames Flow Softly and see what you think…
That has been the fifth edition of postcards from Quotidia. In our next edition we will start, as usual, with an instrumental set, which is followed by a stroll down by the glenside. Jim will sing a cautionary tale for all females contemplating matrimony. The final song is an invitation to come up the stairs.
Credits: All written text, song lyrics and music (including background music) written and composed by Quentin Bega unless otherwise specified in the credits section after individual posts. Illustrative excerpts from other texts identified clearly within each podcast. I donate to and use Wikipedia frequently as one of the saner sources of information on the web.
Technical Stuff: Microphone- (for the podcast spoken content) Audio Technica AT 2020 front-facing with pop filter
Microphone (for many of the songs) Shure SM58
For recording and mixing down 64-bit N-Track Studio 9 Extended used
Music accompaniment and composition software– Band-in-a-Box and RealBand 2020 as well as- for some 20 of the songs of year 2000 vintage- I used a Blue Mountains, NSW, studio. Approximately 48 Banter folk songs and instrumentals recorded live (“in the round”) with a ThinkPad laptop using the inbuilt mic.
Quentin Bega's Blog 