| Loreena McKennitt – The Bonny Swans Lyrics | 10 years ago |
| @[jltc008:2592] maybe the father wasn't a farmer at the beginning. I can't make out the first three words of the song, and I've played it at reduced speed and with vocals enhanced, and I still can't confirm the transcript. | |
| Loreena McKennitt – She Moved Through The Fair Lyrics | 10 years ago |
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@[frozen:2586], the rhythm and melody seem familiar and similar because both "Scarborough Fair" and "She Moved Through the Fair" are ancient. 500 years old, at least, and both probably originated in Scotland. One wandering minstrel would learn the melody and words from another, and they typically modify the words for the next locale he wandered into, sometimes even changing the language. Padraic Colum gave us the modern words to She Moved Through the Fair just over 100 years ago. It's a very traditional, tragic "lost love" ballad. Scarborough Fair is a traditional "impossible task" ballad. It would be sung with the name of whatever town the minstrels wandered through. The current words are also pretty new. Ewan MacColl put it to paper as "Scarborough" somewhere around 1940. @[Micala:2587], no, sorry, it's not at all about the Enniskillen bombing. Simple Minds wanted to whip up a sad song about that bombing, so they took the melody of She Moved Through the Fair, a song that was thoroughly in the public domain and had a proven track record of making people sad for five centuries, and stuck a new set of words on it, calling it "Belfast Child". Total hack job, none of the phrases are the right length. The weird places where Kerr tries to sing two or three syllables in a beat meant for just one are especially crazy. |
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