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Trust me, Cicero wrote it all down
It has come to my attention that I do not own enough classical music. By this I do not mean Mozart, Britten, Saint-Saëns; I mean songs on classical themes, either historical or mythological, and multiple versions of "King Orfeo" do not count. I blame ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
watermelontail for inspiring me to take inventory; I decided that I wanted to put together a mix CD of Greco-Roman stuff, and then I realized that I had a little over thirty songs, reckoned generously, and most of those were by the Mountain Goats.* So what else is out there? I know already that I need to pick up the Crüxshadows' Ethernaut (2003). I have Human Sexual Response's In a Roman Mood (1981). And I have several takes on Persephone, but who writes about Hermes or Hadrian?
There were fireworks tonight on the field between Lexington High School and the Center Playground; a carnival lit up on the grass, with fried dough and a Ferris wheel where I once walked in endless circles on a freezing May night, hot cocoa and blankets instead of stargazing and bugs. I no longer even remember what the twenty-four-hour relay was raising money for, only the cold and the conversations and the live music, because someone was fiddling "The Rights of Man." Tonight there were bats tacking back and forth between the trees, and I had never watched fireworks from the ground up before. I don't know what it is about explosions that always makes me feel better.
* Which is not any kind of aesthetic strike against them, but it does threaten the hypothetical CD with a certain lack of variety—and I don't even have quite enough to make a whole CD of John Darnielle vs. Classical Antiquity.
watermelontail for inspiring me to take inventory; I decided that I wanted to put together a mix CD of Greco-Roman stuff, and then I realized that I had a little over thirty songs, reckoned generously, and most of those were by the Mountain Goats.* So what else is out there? I know already that I need to pick up the Crüxshadows' Ethernaut (2003). I have Human Sexual Response's In a Roman Mood (1981). And I have several takes on Persephone, but who writes about Hermes or Hadrian?There were fireworks tonight on the field between Lexington High School and the Center Playground; a carnival lit up on the grass, with fried dough and a Ferris wheel where I once walked in endless circles on a freezing May night, hot cocoa and blankets instead of stargazing and bugs. I no longer even remember what the twenty-four-hour relay was raising money for, only the cold and the conversations and the live music, because someone was fiddling "The Rights of Man." Tonight there were bats tacking back and forth between the trees, and I had never watched fireworks from the ground up before. I don't know what it is about explosions that always makes me feel better.
* Which is not any kind of aesthetic strike against them, but it does threaten the hypothetical CD with a certain lack of variety—and I don't even have quite enough to make a whole CD of John Darnielle vs. Classical Antiquity.
no subject
because someone was fiddling "The Rights of Man."
Good thing it wasn't "The Butterfly." That thing takes forever to get out of one's head; I can attest to this cos we played it far too much a couple of weeks ago, and I've only recently managed to free myself of it.
I'll have to remember to try starting "Rights of Man" sometime in the not-too-distant. Pity, actually--it would've been perfect for the gig my friend Bill and I were supposed to be playing on Saturday, the one that got postponed til the end of the month cos they accidentally double-booked.
no subject
So I should or should not ask you to point me toward a recording?
no subject
Hmm... that's a difficult question.
Mostly because I don't know of it being on a recording. I'm sure it is, but I only know really know it from hearing it out and about. It's a slip jig in Eminor, and it's used a lot for stepdancing, which is why I ended up playing it a lot during the festivals, and is also why it becomes an earworm round St. Patrick's Day.
Actually, having said that, I just went and looked it up. Looks as if it's on a lot of dodgy recordings, which makes sense cos it's a common tune, but it does also appear to be both on the Bothy Band's 1975 The First and Chulrua's Barefoot on the Altar. I know I've got the latter; I'll see what I can do about finding it and copying you the track.
Well, here's a start
Tommy Potts, The Liffey Banks.
This isn't the way most play it, but Tommy was a mad great fiddler and some think he actually wrote the tune, or at least one part of it as it's played today. His playing here makes it a bit more... wild? Jumpy? Not quite, but I'm having trouble thinking of the words.
Anyhow, as I'm used to playing it--it's popular for stepdancing--it's a bit gentler, which does bring out the hypnotic quality.