Wisdom Guide Me (3:03) 

• 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.

Bonny Susie Cleland (4:56) ***

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.

Let There Be Angels (4:16)

• This song came late at night, as one of those unforeseen "gifts from the Muse".

Medusa (5:33) 

• 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!]

Last Of The Truly Wild (3:26)

• 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.

Young Clifford & Fair Rosamond(2:22) 

•  *

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]

Fits Like A Glove (2:39) 

• 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.

No Country's Law (3:12) 

• 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]

Waterfall (3:14) 

• ****

Written by my good friend Aileen Vance, a wonderful singer and songwriter who recorded it on her “Sweet Life” CD. 

Water Kelpie's Lullaby (3:39) 

• "Deeply impressive" - Roddy Campbell, Penguin Eggs Magazine
• 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.

Queen Eleanor & Fair Rosamond (6:48)

•  **

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]

Island Home (3:43) 

• 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 ..

• Produced by Eileen McGann & David K.