Wisdom Guide Me (3:03) |
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Recent world events have put this song in a new light
for me, and I hope for wisdom to guide all of us and our leaders through
these troubled times.
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Bonny Susie Cleland (4:56) *** |
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I first heard this Child Ballad (#65 ) way back
when at Fiddler’s Green Folk Club. There are many different versions
and endings to this one, most of them rather unpleasant - either briefly
or graphically so. In this telling, Susie shows the intrepidity common
to young Scotswomen of legend and history, and gets the heck out of there.
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Let There Be Angels (4:16) |
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This song came late at night, as one of those unforeseen
"gifts from the Muse".
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Medusa (5:33) |
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Medusa, the snake-haired monster who turned all who
saw her into stone, actually lived most of her life as a beautiful, winged
maiden. She was so lovely that the god Poseidon, lord of the sea
and of horses, fell in love with her, and she became pregnant. The
goddess Athena (who was born directly from the head of a man - the lord
of the Greek Pantheon, Zeus) took a dislike to her, and laid upon
her the curse that made Medusa famous and brought about her death at the
hands of the warrior Perseus. At the moment of her beheading, Medusa
gave birth to Pegasus, the winged horse, whose beauty was such that he
was given a place among the stars as a constellation. The many interpretations
and resonances within this legend perhaps account for its enduring for
more than three thousand years. But I thought it was time the story
was told, for once, from Medusa's point of view. This song
is dedicated to all of us who have been turned to stone by the goddesses
born from the mind of man. [For
more on the Medusa story, click here!]
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Last Of The Truly Wild (3:26) |
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Only a few thousand tigers remain in the wild, and
they are being poached out of existence to supply the black market in “tiger
aphrodisiacs”. Other rare wild things:wild horses, bears, wolves,
big cats and small, are being hunted or killed off through destruction
of their habitat all over the world.
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Young Clifford & Fair Rosamond(2:22) |
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*
King Henry II of England (1154-1189) was a notorious
womanizer, so much so that pretty women were hidden if he was to ride through
their town. This song is an ancient one that tells of how Henry first
heard of the young woman whom he was to make his only long-term mistress:
the lady who was to go down in legend as “Fair Rosamond”. [For
more on the Rosamond story click here]
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Fits Like A Glove (2:39) |
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Challenged by friends in Calgary to write a love
song, I felt it was
appropriate to make it a “two step”, the dance
of choice there.
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No Country's Law (3:12) |
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The media have given us shot after shot of noisy
demonstrations, police in riot gear, pepper spray and broken windows, but
very rarely do they give airtime to the people who could supply the reasons
that so many people around the world are ready to put their lives in danger
to demonstrate against unbridled economic globalization. Here's
just a few of those reasons. [Click
here for more]
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Waterfall (3:14) |
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****
Written by my good friend Aileen Vance, a wonderful
singer and songwriter who recorded it on her “Sweet Life” CD.
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Water Kelpie's Lullaby (3:39) |
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"Deeply impressive" - Roddy Campbell, Penguin
Eggs Magazine
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The Water-Kelpie was a shape-shifting monster of
Scottish legend. He would appear to men as a wild horse, and if the
man mounted the horse, the Kelpie would dash into the water and drown him.
But if he met a young woman, he would appear as a handsome young lord.
In this story, he has been married to a human woman, who upon discovering
his true identity, fled from him, leaving their baby behind since the child
too would likely be a Kelpie. The Kelpie sings his lament in an attempt
to persuade his bride to return to him and the child. [For
more about Kelpies, click here ] This song is from Skye,
the Gesto Collection, translated from the Gaelic.
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Queen Eleanor & Fair Rosamond (6:48) |
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**
Eleanor, ruling Duchess of Aquitaine, was the
most powerful and influential woman of 12th century Europe. First
married to the king of France, she divorced him (out of boredom) to marry
the man who was to become Henry II of England. After bearing him many children,
she tired of being kept from any real power, and as soon as her
eldest son was old enough, she organized a rebellion that very nearly unseated
her husband. The son was pardoned by his father, but Eleanor was
thrown in prison, where she stayed for over 15 years until Henry's death.
Perhaps unable to bear the thought of a woman being that powerful and formidable
in war and politics, the popular imagination attributed the rebellion
solely to her son, and developed a more “romantic” reason for the
Queen's imprisonment: that she had murdered the king's mistress ,
Rosamond Clifford, out of jealousy. [For
more juicy stuff about Eleanor, Rosamond and the whole soap, click here]
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Island Home (3:43) |
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I moved from Calgary to Vancouver Island ,
a large island off the west coast of Canada, in 1999. This song begins
to tells some of the reasons ..
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Produced by Eileen McGann &
David K.
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