It's all too cheerful

Categories: 31-songs-in-may

Tags: music, Kate Rusby, Greenbelt

Date: 06 May 2003 19:57:00

Although yesterday's song was a bit more like it, I have noticed a worrying trend towards cheerfulness in the songs I have selected so far. Time to nip that in the bud then.

May 6th: I Am Stretched on Your Grave.

A confession - up until this morning, when I started to research this song I thought it was traditional. Turns out it's not really, although some would argue it is. I'll be including another song later in May that I'd thought was totally traditional, but later found out was younger than me. Anyway, back to the song for today, The lyrics were originally in Irish Gaelic, but were translated by Frank O'Connor, a poet in his own right. Philip King (of the Irish band 'Scullion', apparantly) later added the melody and recorded it. Sinead O'Connor (no relation, as far as I can work out) has included it her repertoire for some time now, but for me the definitive version is Kate Rusby's folked up one, to be found on her first album - Hourglass. As the Greenbelt site tells us, only 109 days to go to see the wonderful Ms Rusby live. How cool is that. This has gone too cheerful again, how did I get cheerful out of a song about a dead lover? Oh well, better luck tomorrow.