#Dick Gaughan

[gwydionmisha]

Dick Gaughan - Workers' Song

[mistle-thrush]

The Snows They Melt The Soonest..

[comradeharrison]

Happy May 1st ☭

[vintagerpg]

This is the first edition of Philip K. Dick’s The Zap Gun (1967), from Pyramid Books. That’s a Jack Gaughan cover. I kind of love how his work almost never seems to entirely mesh with the novel he’s fronting. All these jesters running around.

Anyway, The Zap Gun. I don’t really know how to summarize it. The cold war has given way into this weird agreement where the US and the Soviets pretend to keep making weapons, but they actually don’t work. Culture has turned them into fashion items, though, so there is a big market for new ones, which are designed by comic book artists. The main character is one of these, and is depressed because none of his weapons work. All of this becomes a problem when aliens invade and humanity lacks functioning weaponry to use in their defense. As ever for Dick, it is a swirling, trippy sort of novel and is in the era of my favorite of Dick’s more conventional SF novels, Ubik, Maze of Death and Galactic Pot-Healer. If you can ever call Dick conventional.

[scotianostra]

Happy Birthday the Scottish folk singer/songwriter Brian McNeill born on April 6th 1950 in Falkirk.

Brian was a founder member of the Battlefield Band, one of our finest Folk Groups. He also joined several other top Scottish Folk musicians including Dick Gaughan in Clan Alba.

Brian is a multi instrumentalist – chiefly fiddle, bouzouki, mandocello, guitars and concertina – and the importance of his songwriting has long been recognised with such songs as The Yew Tree, The Lads O' The Fair, The Snows of France and Holland, Strong Women Rule Us All With Their Tears, Any Mick'll Do and No Gods and Precious Few Heroes. Many of his songs have been performed and recorded by artists worldwide. He has been described as ‘Scotland’s most meaningful contemporary songwriter’.

​Brian’s audio visual shows, The Back O' The North Wind, about Scottish emigration to America, and the sequel, The Baltic Tae Byzantium, exploring the influence of the Scots in Europe, have won wide critical acclaim. His long connection with America's Lone Star State led to him being created an honorary Texan by the then Governor George W Bush. For six years Brian was Head of Scottish Music at the RSAMD, now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Brian is increasingly in demand for his production skills and his album credits include Davey Arthur, The Paul McKenna Band, Lorne MacDougall, Rua Macmillan, Eric Bogle and John Munro, Matt Tighe and Tad Sargent, The John Wright Band, Drones and Bellows and Missouri a cappella quartet The Wee Heavies.

As well as his musical talent Brian has also turned his hand to writing, he pens short stories, crime and mystery fiction involving his hero, busker Alex Fraser and his heroine, private sleuth Sammy Knox.

Brian is currently on the road with the The Feast of Fiddles 30th anniversary tour.

A song Brian wrote is one of my favourite modern folk songs

No Gods And Precious Few Heroes

I was listening to the news the other day Heard a fat politician who had the nerve to say He was proud to be Scottish, by the way With the glories of our past to remember "Here's tae us, wha's like us", listen to the cry No surrender to the truth and here's the reason why The power and the glory's just another bloody lie They use to keep us all in line

For there's no gods and there's precious few heroes But there's plenty on the dole in the land o the leal And it's time now to sweep the future clear Of the lies of a past that we know was never real

So farewell to the heather and the glen They cleared us off once and they'd do it all again For they still prefer sheep to thinking men Ah, but men who think like sheep are even better There's nothing much to choose between the old vain and the new They still don't give a damn for the likes of me and you Just mind you pay your rent to the factor when it's due And mind your bloody manners when you pay

For there's no gods and there's precious few heroes But there's plenty on the dole in the land o' the leal And it's time now to sweep the future clear Of the lies of a past that we know was never real

And tell me will we never hear the end Of puir bluidy Charlie at Culloden yet again? Though he ran like a rabbit down the glen Leavin better folk than him to be butchered Or are you sittin in your Council house, dreamin o'er your clan? Waiting for the Jacobites to come and free the land? Try going down the broo with your claymore in your hand And count all the Princes in the queue

For there's no gods and there's precious few heroes But there's plenty on the dole in the land o' the leal And it's time now to sweep the future clear Of the lies of a past that we know was never real

So don't talk to me of Scotland the Brave For if we don't fight soon there'll be nothing left to save Or would you rather stand and watch them dig your grave While you wait for the Tartan Messiah? He'll lead us to the Promised Land with laughter in his eye We'll all live on the oil and the whisky by and by Free heavy beer! Pie suppers in the sky Will we never have the sense to learn?

That there's no gods and there's precious few heroes But there's plenty on the dole in the land o' the leal And I'm damned sure that there's plenty live in fear Of the day we stand together with our shoulders at the wheel Aye, there's no Gods

[murder-ballad-ballot]

round 1, match 6: the bonnie banks o' fordie vs tom dooley

examples & descriptions

bonnie banks o' fordie

"an innocent trip to pick flowers results in multiple murders, a suicide, and the complete destruction of family bonds"

dick gaughan

tom dooley

"tom dooley stabs a girl on a mountain and gets hanged for it" or,"

"classic cautionary/condemnation/confessional of man's murder of sweetheart"

kingston trio, doc watson, frank proffitt

[pog-mo-bhlog]

I know it was written in the 90s so the bit about the politician can't be about trump, but still I would like to tie him to a chair and force him to listen to this (and all the many songs by Scottish artists that are explicitly about him being hated here)

And then I would kill him after obvs. For the greater good.

[onetwofeb]

Dick Gaughan - Handful Of Earth (1981)

[stressfulsloth]

Tagged by @findusinaweek, thank you 💜💜

A song for every letter in your username 🎶

S: Skeleton Appreciation Day- Will Wood and the Tapeworms

T: True Trans Soul Rebel- Against Me! (Song of all time...)

R: Rejoice- AJJ

E: Everybody Wants to Love You- Japanese Breakfast

S: Seven Wonders- Fleetwood Mac

S: Square Hammer-Ghost

F: From Eden- Hozier

U: Up the Wolves- The Mountain Goats

L: Little Soldiers- Crane Wives

S: She's So Lovely- The Butchies

L: Last Song- Jason Webley

O: On Melancholy Hill- Gorillaz

T: The World Turned Upside Down- Dick Gaughan (odd one out in terms of genre, but I love the guitar (?) in this one :))

H: House of Wolves- My Chemical Romance

Tagging @ignitingthesky @radio-volta @koloocheh @electromelancholy @wltcher @rystonlentil @grimfeywizard feel extremely free to ignore me!! 💜

[duskoscrawl]

A break down of my 'The Voices Beneath' Series and Playlist

The entire playlist can be accessed on YouTube here and the series is on ao3 here and is summarised as following:

An exploration of the pervading influence of Dwendalian Nationalism over the Empire's citizens and how it seeps into their mentalities. Particularly through the life of Caleb Widogast.

The Playlist, Song by Song:

Mordred's Lullaby, Heather Dale: this is the song that the series title is drawn from. It draws from Arthurian myth and is pretty dark for a lullaby. The series premise draws from the lines 'And you won't understand the cause of your grief | but you'll always follow the voices beneath' which I think really feeds into the collective grief stricken nationalism of the Zemni Fields.

Eat Your Young, Hozier (Bekon's Choral Version): A lot of my work for this series is rooted in Irish literature - especially since my reading of the EGW suggests that the fields are mostly worked by tenant farmers - therefore I was thrilled when Hozier released a song based on Johnathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' which argued that as the English landlords had stolen so much from the Irish, why didn't they just eat the children too. It is this kind of energy that fuels the first half of Zemnian Days (fort, doch nicht vergessen), which is a bildungsroman of Una Ermendrud's life and explores day to day life in the fields.

The Worker's Song, Ben Robertson (Ed Pickford, arr. Dick Gaughan): this is a very good folk song about the systematic abuse of the working class. The lines 'and when the sky darkens | and the prospect is war | who's given a gun | and then pushed to the fore?' play into the Righteous Brand's recruitment of farmhands from the fields, seen throughout Zemnian Days.

Pleasant and Delightful, the Longest Johns: this is a folk song about love and grief and longing, perfect for the last section of Zemnian Days, where Una and Leofric fall in love, but Leofric signs up to the Righteous Brand to be able to financially support the child Una falls pregnant with.

Unbreakable, Keiino: this is one of my go-to songs for Caleb. It's based on the story of the Snow Queen and carries that fairytale vibe that Caleb delivers so well with Der Katzenprins and the Waldhexe. It is paired with Looking Out of the Window which is a fic in which Una watches her son grow up for sixteen years, and ends in fire and flame. When listening to the song, I often position Ikithon as the evil mother figure from the Snow Queen who is making Bren unbreakable

The Innocent, Aurora: this is where the thrumming beat of Rexxentrum starts to play. Where Bren gets his scholarship and meets the city with wonder and joy. The song slowly spirals into a kind of desperation, wherein you can imagine Ikithon taking power over the Blumendrei.

A Temporary High, Aurora: this is the song for the Blumendrei being each other's only comfort in the midst of Ikithon's torture. There's a running motif throughout the song about being cold and hoping that the love is not just a temporary high - which I think really plays into the whole story of their imprisonment in the Academy tower.

Wulf ond Eadwacer, Hanna Marti: this is my favourite Old English poem, excellently performed by Hanna Marti. It is spoken by an Anglo Saxon woman about her two lovers (historical debate and difficulty in translation makes this uncertain), but I have drawn from my favourite bits of translation to write Ungelīc is ūs (we are apart). This covers Astrid's story of the first month after Bren breaks and she is a fully fledged Vollstrucker. It is very intense about the level of control Ikithon has over her life.

The In-between (piano solo), Evanescence: this is a particularly haunting piece of music that encompasses the first part of Bren's imprisonment in the Vergessen Sanatarium. It pairs with the fic Hourglass of Ash, which is a free indirect discourse piece showing Bren's perspective of his time in Vergessen.

Me and the Devil, Soap&Skin: this covers the end of Hourglass of Ash where the man who will become Caleb Widogast comes to himself in Vergessen Sanatarium and begins to face the horror of what he has done.

The Tragedy of Widogast, Chase Noseworthy: this is a wonderful song, and in this playlist it bookmarks the birth of the man who is becoming Caleb Widogast. As a lot of this is covered in game, I have not written much for the next section of songs.

Feed the Machine, Poor Man's Poison: this song is another one about the systematic abuse of the working classes. It is my song for Nott and Caleb before they meet the Nein.

Give Me a Reason, Chase Noseworthy and Lilli Furfaro: this is a beautifully haunting song about Astrid and Caleb meeting in Rexxentrum. It keeps its context in this playlist.

Dine with the Puppetmaster, Chase Noseworthy: this song is about the dinner with Ikithon. It keeps its context in this series, and I very much enjoy the imagery that is used in the song.

This is Love, Air Traffic Controller: this song is my go-to song for Trent Ikithon. It has a relentless set of vocals that sing from the perspective of an abuser. There is also another voice that reminds me of Astrid. In this playlist, this song represents the final battle against Ikithon in the finale.

I Won't, AJR: courtesy of @leetlesapphiretiefling. This song directly pairs with the fic I do what you tell me to (and do it to death), which is a character study of Eadwulf. The fic is inspired both by the song and by a hedgerow in my village that I was walking along. It explores snippets of Wulf's childhood, paired with his survival technique during his years with Ikithon.

So Human of You, Shireen: this song is about deriding a person who bases their humanity in cruelty. It pairs with Inheritance of the Archmage, which is a fic about Astrid having Wulf, Caleb and some members of the Cobalt Soul helping her to clean out Ikithon's Candle, which she, as the new Archmage of Civil Influence, has inherited. It is about coming to terms with the cruelty that has made up the last 17 years of her life.

The Devil is Human, Aurora: this one is also related to Inheritance of the Archmage, as it carries a similar message about humanity and cruelty. It also refers to the singer and associates as becoming 'real human beings' which I tie into Astrid and Wulf being able to move out of living in survival mode and process what has happened - something that is explored in the fic by them finding a cache of genuine letters from their families that Ikithon had withheld from them.

Waldhexe, Chase Noseworthy and Ginny Di: this song directly inspired Waldhexe (spare us from your claws). This fic is a pov outsider piece from the perspective of the Ermendrud's neighbours, who see Caleb come to visit home as a ghost. It is about the collective grief in the Fields, as the War of Ash and Light (I think that's what it's called, Essek's war) had robbed the Ehlers of their three children, all of whom were called up to be soldiers. It works to reconcile the broad strokes of the campaign with the minutia of the thousands of inhabitants of the Empire and the Dynasty.

Lost Without You, Freya Ridings: this is the purest grief song on this entire playlist and it is dedicated to a goose called Peck Beck, who is the narrator for Find Familiar. This fic is about a goose who loves baby Astrid unconditionally and is then eaten when her family die, before being brought back as a familiar. I adore this fic. It was inspired by a trip round a lovely Welsh museum of culture (it's the kind of museum where they have lots of historical buildings on site and they had medieval farmhouses through to modern ones).

Gloria in Excelsis Dei, Vivaldi: I would have put the whole Gloria oratorio in here if I thought I could get away with it. This accompanies the fic Gloria, which details Essek viewing a graduation at the Soltryce Academy and exploring the role of pomp and ceremony in nationbuilding. It was inspired by watching my flatmate perform Gloria with a university choir in a particularly nice church.

Garden of Bones, Galdorcræft: this is a very dark sounding song about being in the garden and keeping on living. It pairs with my fic Bitter Meadowsweet, which deals with Caleb mourning the mundane aspects of his childhood, as well as the fact that he will never be able to learn skills and recipes off of his parents.

Earth Mother, Fáerhin: this is a fairly dark sounding ambient song that carries an ominous sense of peace. It is another one for Caleb's garden and the uneasy sense of peace you get when mingling the soft epilogues with the political uncertainty of Rexxentrum politics and Essek's situation.

Brave New World, Kalandra: this is a beautifully dystopian song. I associate it with Beau and Caleb beginning to uncover just how deep the Cerberus Assembly corruption goes, as well as trying to utilise Caleb's role in the Academy to curb wizard hubris. For that reason, it goes with the fic Control Flames, which is a pov outsider view of professor Widogast that I began writing in the wake of the finale.

A Good Song Never Dies, Saint Motel: this song has a very determined beat, and a very strong sense of purpose. It is a song I associate with Beau and Caleb working to take down the Assembly.

Death to Cerberus, Chase Noseworthy: this song is about taking down the Cerberus Assembly and the implications that might accompany it. It keeps its context in this playlist.

Hiraeth, Plu: this is a lovely song in Welsh that sounds almost hymnal. It is for this reason that it makes a good conclusion to the playlist and a good companion to No More Children On The Pyre, which is a love note to the impact that the Mighty Nein's ethos has had upon Wildemount, and Exandria.

All in all, I think that The Voices Beneath is the series that I'm most proud of.

[uneasylisteningradio]

Labor Day 2023 September 2, 2023

stream on mixcloud

Soul Flower Mononoke Summit - The Internationale FREAK GENES - Let's Get to Work

DJ speaks over The Stumbling Band - The Internationale

The Ex - You Shall Not Pass Almanac Singers - Plow Under Skitsystem - Profithysteri Deathreat - Victim of the Middle Class Myth Red Red Krovvy - Company Job

Gang of Four - Cheeseburger The Dukes - I'm an Unskilled Worker John Handcox - There Is Mean Things Happening In This Land Boots for Dancing - Money (Is Thin on the Ground) The Young Canadians - Well Well Well Zalmen Mlotek,The New Yiddish Chorale, The Workmens Circle Chorale - In Ale Gasn (in every Street) Daloy Politsey (Down with the Police) Neo Boys - Cheap Labor

The Kids - I Wanna Get a Job in the City Qlowski - Lentil Soup Alex Bartha's Hotel Traymore Orchestra - It Must be Swell To Be Laying Out Dead Subhumans - Work Experience

Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers - We Need Some Money Progressive Labor Party - Mary Got a New Job Ernst Busch & Grigori Schneerson - Das Einheitsfrontlied (Live) Omega Tribe - Young John Billy Bragg - It Says Here

Rose Marie Jun - Chain Store Daisy Dirt - Unemployment Dick Gaughan - Workers' Song The Dils - Class War The Beat - Work-a-Day World Aunt Molly Jackson - Ragged Hungry Blues part 2

Manhattan Chorus, Elie Siegmeister, Mordecai Bauman & Maudy Bauman - On the Picket Line Passion Day - Weapon of Work MDC - I Hate Work Cherry Cheeks - Not My Job

Chumbawamba - One By One

[misneachsblr]

Amhrán an Lae #1 / Song of the Day #1

"The World Turned Upside Down" le Leon Rosselson (an leagan seo le Dick Gaughan)

Amhrán a choinníonn na "Diggers" i gcuimhne. Ba grúpa radacach Protastúnach iad, a sheas in aghaidh rialtais na Breataine agus a bpolasaí a chur timpeallú i bhfeidhm. Bhíodar ag iarraidh cearta talamh cimín a choimeád.

[timehascomeagain]

Coronation day tune ❤❤❤

[twoblackcats-com-blog]

reconciliation by Dave Binyon Via Flickr: Music : Please Right Click and select "Open link in new tab" www.youtube.com/watch?v=epkhp_pklgA Reconciliation - Dick Gaughan When summertime has gone and autumn winds are threatening To blow our love away 'tis then love will be tested Arm in arm we'll stand, side by side together To face the common foe who would tear our love asunder

[mangled-by-disuse]

i cannot stop laughing at noted pumpkin spice banjo player

[checks notes]

dick gaughan

[scotianostra]

The folk singer-songwriter and playwright Ewan MacColl was born on January 25th at Salford, England.

Now and again I post about Anglo-Scots, those born over the border in the home of our closest neighbours England, McColl is a man who was proud of his Scottish heritage, there is no doubt, but there is no doubt he took much from his upbringing in Salford, most evident in the song about the city Dirty old Town.

Ewan was born as James Henry Miller to William Miller and Betsy (née Henry). William, an iron moulder and trade unionist, had to leave Scotland after being blacklisted at every foundry in Scotland, one of them being the Carron Ironworks at Falkirk, that crops up in my posts now and then.

Ewan left school in 1930 after an elementary education, during the Great Depression and, joining the ranks of the unemployed, began a lifelong programme of self-education whilst keeping warm in Manchester Central Library. During this period he found intermittent work in a number of jobs and also made money as a street singer.

In 1932 the British intelligence service, MI5, opened a file on MacColl, after local police asserted that he was "a communist with very extreme views" who needed "special attention” For a time the Special Branch kept a watch on the Manchester home that he shared with his first wife, Joan Littlewood. MI5 caused some of MacColl's songs to be rejected by the BBC, and prevented the employment of Littlewood as a BBC children's programme presenter.

Inspired by the example of Alan Lomax, who had arrived in Britain and Ireland in 1950, and had done extensive fieldwork there, MacColl also began to collect and perform traditional ballads. Some of you might remember my post Come All Ye Tramps And Hawkers from the Lomax archive a few weeks ago, he was a folklorist, archivist, writer, scholar, political activist, oral historian, and film-maker.

More well known by most as a singer, MacColl was also an actor, writer and playwright To put him into some sort of importance George Bernard Shaw said of him in 1947, “Apart from myself, MacColl is the only man of genius writing for the theatre in Britain today., fine praise indeed.

MacColl recorded a huge volume of traditional Scottish and English folk songs, as well as creating a vast body of his own work, which ranged from satirical protest songs to tender love ballads, the latter most popularly renowned in his composition, The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, written for his wife, Peggy Seeger (another folk singer), but made most famous by Roberta Flack. His songs have been sung by the likes of the Dubliners, Dick Gaughan, The Clancy Brothers, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, David Gray and The Pogues.

Back to my favourite song by Ewan MacColl, Dirty Old Town, it’s not about Dublin, as many believe but Salford, because the Dubliners made it famous I think that’s where the confusion comes from.

Ewan must have been very proud of his daughter the late Kirsty MacColl, who followed on from her dad as a singer songwriter.

In 1979 he suffered the first of many heart attacks. The next ten years saw a steady deterioration in his physical condition, but he continued to work, tour, lecture and write songs. In 1980 he wrote his last play, The Shipmaster, the moving story of a sailing ship captain who cannot adapt to the coming of steam. In 1987 he began to write his autobiography, Journeyman. In the same year the University of Exeter presented him with an honorary degree. On October 22nd 1989, he died of complications following a heart operation. The University of Salford awarded him a posthumous honorary degree in 1991.

I’ve chosen The Bonnie Lass of Fyvie today as it is the first song I learnt and sang while still at primary school, probably aged about 10 year old.

If you want to know more about the man, his music and lots more check out the web page dedicated to Ewan here http://www.ewanmaccoll.co.uk/ewan-maccoll-biography/