Folksongs & Ballads Popular In Ireland Vol. 4 (v. 4) (Paperback)

by John Loesberg (Author) "This collection of Songs and Ballads sung all over Ireland is not intended to be another scholarly volume of music that some would like to..." (more)
Key Phrases: quare bungle rye, Ossian Publications, Copyright Secured, Eileen Aroon (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
The very best of Irish folk songs. Each volume features 50 complete songs with music, words, guitar chords, and interesting background notes on the songs.

Product Details

• Paperback: 100 pages
• Publisher: Ossian (December 31, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0946005338
• ISBN-13: 978-0946005338
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,672,807 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars READ THE TITLE CAREFULLY: FOLKSONGS POPULAR IN IRELAND A QUARTER CENTURY AGO, June 20, 2007

By	C. Scanlon "least helpful reviewer" (among us humans) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Folksongs & Ballads Popular In Ireland Vol. 1 (v. 1) (Paperback)

AS Mr. Loesberg repeatedly indicates in his fine and clarifying introduction, these are not Irish songs, as alleged here in the editorial comments on amazon's product detail page, but rather are they songs popular in Ireland over a quarter century ago, when this pamphlet found collection and publication in the great coastal city of Cork.

Therefore we find included only two songs in the Irish tongue (a fact lamented and explained in the introduction), but some English, Scots and American tunes. Thank goodness the allegedly Irish song Danny Boy does not arise its dubious head. However we do find Leadbelly's House of the Rising Sun with the additional verses as recorded by the young Bob Dylan (copying Dave Van Rank) and Eric Burdon with the early Animals. We also find the English slaver's hymn Amazing Grace, as well Scarborough Fair.

Nevertheless with great and tearful joy I find several songs familiar from the early Clancy Brothers (inclduing Jug of Punch) and those reinvigorated by the mighty mighty Pogues. Thus you may once more rousingly shout The Leaving of Liverpool and the great Wild Rover (or just play their CD if you are alone as I).

Gratefully included here are some wonderful Irish nationalist and revolutionary tunes as well, including A Nation Once Again, The Foggy Dew, The Bold FEnian Men, The Rising of the Moon, and the great and mournful ode to Kevin Barry, whose life and death reads now like an insurgent in Gitmo or Abhu Graibh. Brief notes concerning each song are gathered at the end of thise broadside, and Mr. Loesberg mentions "Kevin was killed on Nov. 1, 1920. he tune is from a sea shanty- 'Rolling Home.'" The lyrics themselves give more of the history, as such songs were once part of the oral history of our great nation:

"In Mountjoy Jail one Monday morning High up on the gallows tree, Kevin Barry gave his young life, for the cause of liberty. But a lad of eighteen summers, yet no one can deny, As he walked to death that morning, he proudly held his head on high.

"Just before he faced the hangmen, in his dreary prison cell, British soldiers tortured Barry, just because he would not tell The names of his brave companions and other things they wished to know. 'Turn informer or we'll kill you!' Kevin Barry answered 'No.'

"( . . .skipping a verse)"

"Another martyr for old Ireland, another murder for the crown, whose brutal laws may kill the IRish, but can't keep their spirits down. ( . . .)"

We who cannot remember our history are condemned to repeating it now.

The bulk of this glorious book of course is filled with sentimental tunes of loves both near and far, including of course Will you go Lassie Go, and several others beside, well known and lesser remembered but exciting to find the beauty of this music.

Mr. Loesberg acknowledges the kind assistance of the Cork Library and schools and families in collecting the songs in this book, and includes guitar chords for each song, and some very useful pages of guitar and music theory at the end, inclduing regarding the transposition of keys and chords, and the use of a capo. The chord charts on page 60 alone are worth the slight price of the book, whose songs themselves are priceless.

Useful recordings of some of these songs include The Rising of the Moon: Irish Songs of Rebellion and Irish Songs of Rebellion/Irish Drinking Songs from the Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem, as well of course as the rousing pipes of Spider and the Pogues delivering in full Red Roses for Me and Rum Sodomy & the Lash, etc.