Thursday 29 August 2019

Notes towards a performance of Patrick Kavanagh, On Raglan Road

...this could be turned into a properly referenced research article, whose title might be...

'Towards a performance of Patrick Kavanagh, On Raglan Road'...

But here we are...

Notes towards a performance of Patrick Kavanagh, On Raglan Road

Practical people, like lyricists, musicians and singers, are reluctant to concede that there is such an entity as the 'folk' as envisaged by a variety of theorists - but we do acknowledge that there is a folk process, by which lyric and melody become common property.  This is a process of forgetting, half remembering, simplifying and reconstructing - perhaps best described by the Opies, in their study of Nursery Rhymes.

The story of how Patrick Kavanagh came to write a new lyric to a familiar melody, and how that song became part of the repertoire of the Dubliners, has entered the folk process - and typically of our world and its web, various versions of that story float around.  The history of the melody and the earlier lyric, Dawning of the Day, Fainne Geal an Lae, and that lyric's place in Irish traditions, can be established - for example, the song was recorded by John McCormack.  

Kavanagh's lyric is therefore what the musicologists call a contrafactum.   And his lyric is technically interesting, in its use of rhythm and rhyme to point the structure of the melody - in a way that the earlier lyric did not - and in its placing of itself in a relationship with that older lyric's vision poem tradition.

For a performer, the phrasing of Kavanagh's lyric can be difficult.  It is noteworthy that, in his version, Luke Kelly, of The Dubliners, at some points simply abandons Kavanagh's structured phrasing.  And it tends to be Luke Kelly's version that enters the folk process - unless performers make a conscious decision to return to the published version of Kavanagh's lyric, as established by Antoinette Quinn.  However, the web now allows us to track further changes, in text and in performance - and in some cases it can be argued that, for performance decisions, these half-remembered lines are better than the lines enshrined by Quinn.

Since the death of Luke Kelly the performance of the song by The Dubliners has acquired a reverential, hymn-like quality.  Two recent outings of the song, by Tradfest and in the Martin McDonagh movie, In Bruges, have located the song in a church.  This hymn-like approach, arguably, ignores the story behind the lyric, the story within the lyric, and the detail of Kavanagh's text - which is, after all, a song about a middle aged man falling for a beautiful young woman, a tale that we might today regard as a bit creepy.  

But which is, of course, a major theme in world literature.  In is a theme that scholars of literature find themselves having to defend, and transcend - as Ted Gioia does in his study of Love Songs.

So, as a performer approaches this song, there is much to consider...  In 2019, as a birthday present to myself, I spent some time in the recording studio, with guitarist Danny Yates, working on Kavanagh's song.  I now offer - not a performance of the song - but further Notes towards a performance...

The recording can be found here, on my Soundcloud...

I acknowledge the friendly support of Bent Sørensen, Department of Culture and Global Studies, Aalborg University...
Sørensen, Bent. 2014. “True Gods of Sound and Stone - The Many Crossings of Patrick Kavanagh’s On Raglan Road.” In The Crossings of Art in Ireland, edited by Ruben Moi, Brynhildur Boyce, and Charles Armstrong, 65–79. Bern: Peter Lang.

...and of Danny Yates, City Sound Studios...

Bent Sørensen commented on 'the complete avoidance of melisma...' in my performance.  I had to look it up.  Think, Whitney Houston and the 6 second first 'I' of I Will Always Love You...


Bent Sørensen is making an interesting point about Patrick Kavanagh, the lyricist.  And I Will Always...  sing like a writer...

Saturday 2 March 2019

Give us a song...


Give us a song...

When people learn that I write song lyrics, specifically people from certain specific cultural backgrounds, there is a tendency to say, at maybe specific times of the evening, Give us a song...

Whilst there are no theological objections to this, you do need to know...

I am a good lyricist.  I am a not a good singer.  I am a terrible musician.

It is true that I have attended singing lessons, for some years now - but that has mostly been about acquiring knowledge rather than acquiring skill.

The singing lessons are certainly good for my health, and my complex respiratory problems.

But mostly I use the lessons to explore song and lyric - my own work, of course.  But also, when I want to understand a Dowland song, I study and sing a Dowland song.  Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, the same.  When I want to understand Brecht, I study and sing a Brecht/Weill song - and usually I have to tidy up the English language version of the Brecht lyric.

And, also, of course, I am learning how to talk to and listen to musicians.  And better understand their needs.

In turn, if you are asking me to Give us a song, you must understand my needs.

First of all, with my delicate nature, I need a properly structured warm up.  You cannot expect me to just launch into song, like a wild bird.

Then I will need some sort of instrumental intro - this vastly increases the chances of me starting on the right note.

But I will also need some sort of counting-in guy - I might start on the right note, but will I start on the right beat?

Musicians - I do need musicians, someone or something to keep me on track, something to help me with the melody...  I do tend to drift off, and dangerously find comfort in some generalised folkloric drone.

Ideally there should be a backing singer or maybe more than one backing singer, one for harmony, one for melody.  My friend Stephanie Hladowski is very good at this.  She finds a harmony or some sort of structure to whatever I happen to be singing, and almost makes it sound as if I know what am I doing.

Remember, musicians, that if you take some sort of instrumental break - whilst the singers stand around looking appreciative - I am going to need the counting-in guy again.  Do not let the counting-in guy think his job is done.  If it was hard to start on the right beat at the beginning, it is even more difficult to hit that beat in the welter of noise.

Now, all this musicians will understand, but be puzzled by - for are all these things not second nature?  No, dears, they are not second nature to me - I had to learn.

So, I am not saying that I will never Give us a song.  But you do need to know that when you ask me to Give us a song you are asking for something complex, difficult, needing forethought and planning.

Also, I am very shy.

Wednesday 20 February 2019

Lyricist


People who know my work will recall that I am a writer and researcher, based in Yorkshire, England.  My current academic affiliation is with New York University – I am Visiting Scholar at the Glucksman Ireland House, NYU.

My work is visible in a number of places, on the web and in the research literature – as is my CV.

Not that visible in the standard CVs is my work, over the years, as a working lyricist. 

Most relevant here is this version of my CV on the British Music Collection web site…

A song lyric selection is visible, in book form, on Amazon, and in many other places…
Love Death and Whiskey - 40 songs, by Patrick O'Sullivan
Read the Introduction to that book, for some first thoughts at that time...


This is one of my song translations on Soundcloud - this is an English language version of the much loved Cabo Verde song, almost a second Cabo Verde national anthem, Papa Joachim Paris…

Blog entry about that here...

And this, on YouTube, is a lyric I wrote for a much loved melody, Jill's Theme by Ennio Morricone, from the Sergio Leone move, Once Upon a  Time in the West…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yt29GzVKGRU

Blog entry here...

I have been able to give more time and thought to the song lyric part of my output, and to the lyricist part of me, over the past decade, since the publication of Love Death and Whiskey - and have gathered a little team of musicians and singers, just to make sure that I have resources to illustrate the material.  As we say in the industry, make a demo...

And I have gathered research material, to place my own practice within the research record - specifically, I am developing research projects on traditional verse forms, especially the use of rhyme.  And on song translation.

Patrick O'Sullivan
February 2019