The Pure Golden Heart of It

We have many opportunities to hear live music in Ireland, and don't do enough of it. I always love it and always feel better. There are formal concerts at the theatre, and sometimes at pubs. There's the Clubeo at Leo's which showcase young musicians (mostly). And trad sessions at bars.

I went to a song circle at a pub in Falcarragh the other night. I don't have any photos or recordings, because like a quantum physics experiment, that would have made it weird. So my words will have to do.

The last time I was at The Shamrock, I saw a sign for a monthly "song circle." I didn't know what to expect. Would it be a crowded, raucous trad session? Would it be mostly men showing off? Would it be an audience sympathetic to earnest performers?

None of that. About a dozen people in a warm quiet private room away from the sports and drinking in the pub rooms, like the feel of someone's sitting room, with strangers and old friends gathered: curious, generous.

I was late, which I thought would be what everyone would have done, but this circle starts on time: half-eight. A little too late for my friends who are settled around their own fires at that hour. This circle remained until nearly mid-night, and the hours flew by.

After I settled into a corner, the next song was given us by a man with a Dublin accent who later told us he learned English on the Italian-Swiss border from listening to music. Later he said he sang on Dublin streets for twenty years. 

Then it was "my turn." Already. "My turn?" "No pressure." "If you have one." I do have a song, if asked, a silly song that makes fun of a New Age stereotype that might be attached to me when I say I'm from California. So I sang it. It's by Mark Graham. Here is a version by Marley's Ghost.

I always try to give a song when asked and definitely wanted to that night because it was clear that this song circle was about giving each other songs. No performances. We gave each other songs we knew.

After going around the circle and everyone had sung a song, we stopped for tea and biscuits and then formed a circle again, this time a little smaller, and went around and around. Some people sang Irish songs in English and Irish. Some sang American folk songs, which sometimes sound Irish. Several people sang songs from the Traveler tradition, including a version of Barbara Allen. Near the end, someone sang King of the Road, which he joked was a 1964 Traveler song from America. We agreed.

I sang The Maple's Lament by Laurie Lewis, a song by Californian that sounds Irish.

Someone else recited a long hilarious poem about a woman from Muff who knitted jumpers of fluff. She sold them all over Ireland, but they fell apart and by the end of the poem she's arrested by the guards for fraud. The poem references Donegal villages and local stereotypes. We were all amazed.

The last song was the Road to Creeslough, about how someone who has left Donegal will come home knowing every twist and turn through mountains, bridges, and villages. When she finished, the circle discussed the versions of the song they knew, and who probably originally wrote it.

A song circle like this one is the pure golden heart of music. I read somewhere that music is that one part of life we bring with us to heaven. I don't believe in a heaven or an afterlife, so here is where I find it.