Ildaite Sound, Episode XII "In Search of Spanker."

 

Jungle, Patricio Sullivan
La Lom, Angels Point
The Cuban, Paudie O’Connor
Téchnicas de Control, Zulema Guitierez
Érase una vez el futuro, Pajarito
Spanker, Fintan and Charlie O’Brien
The Dynamics, Frantic Noon
Pajarito, Érase una vez un futuro
Brecon Beacon, Los Lorcas
Un Disparo en la Noche, Tendal Orquestra Típica Juilán Peralata
Bryan O’Leary and Colm Guilfoyle, Is it the priest you want?
Cruzar Mundos, The Peacocks
Sweet Kingwilliams Town, Bryan O’Leary and Colm Guilfoyle, feat. Seamus Begley
Nave Sin Rumbo, Sylvia Rexach
O’Rahilly’s Grave, Denis Murphy and Julia Clifford

  

Ildaite Sound, Episode X, "The Goat."

Playlist:
Cruzando el Valle, Mariano Rodriguez
The Day after Tomorrow, Tom Waits
Facundo Flores, Pequeña Buda
Chacarera del 55, Aura!
Pétalo de Sal, Vero Marjbein
Melo do Bode, Manu Chao y Juliana Linhares
Adidja Palmer, Ushmush
Milo J, 3 Pecados Después
Considering, Mik Pyro
An Murdar Meaisín, Leathshúil
No Olvidamos, Molotov
Dillom, Toda La Gente
The Magnetic Field, Ten Past Seven
Sueño del Tango, Octeto Atemporal
Nocau Lirico, Bordonasnocromo
Amhrán Mhuínse, Líadan
Coro Qom Chelaalapi/Lagartijeando, Antiguos Dueños De Las Flechas 

Ildaite Sound, Episode IX, "Where Dirty Vermin Muster."

Playlist:

Sean ó Duibhir, Paddy Tunney
To War, Cormac Ó'Beaglaoich
Cogadh, John Spillane
Not Now for Songs of a Nation's Wrongs (extract from film 'Gods and Generals')
Dos Hermanos, Hernan Ríos
The Ghost of Roger Casement, Tim Browne
No Bombardeen Buenos Aires, Charly García
La batalla de Chacabuco, Oscar Rueda
Canto a Bernardo O’Higgins, Silvia Infantas
Saint Patrick Was a Gentleman, Stockton's Wing
The Street Dogs, San Patricios
Zamba del Exilio, Los Gauchos Riojanos
Lament for Limerick, Martin Hayes and Denis Cahill
Lochaber, Seán Ó Garbhí
An Phailistín, Roisín Elsafty
Mariana Carrizo, Doña Ubenza

Bleak is the Pampa, Irish folk Song in Argentina

The lyrics to "Bleak is the Pampa" were written by an exiled Irishman in Buenos Aires in 1873. The songs words were published in the corner of a random page of a provincial newspaper in Buenos Aires and then soon forgotten. Unlike many of the other Irish songs scattered among the pages of "El Monitor de la Campaña," Bleak is the Pampa had no obvious melody. That is, the music itself is newly composed. There are illusions to the island of Hy Brasil in its verses, "had he ne'er quitted his own island dwelling, in search of a phantom in lands far away." In 2022 I was approached after a concert at the Universidad del Salvador by Miguel Guarrnochea. Migue had just heard me sing another song from his home town "The Trackless Wild."In the following weeks he furnished me with all the digital archives of the newspaper "El Monitor de la Campaña." Here began a year and a half of going through those pages, lifting out gems like this song.

Last week I did some filming on the pampa wild. I found a beautiful bit of untouched wilderness outside of a little town called "Las Garcitas." Tripping over bones, turkeys, dodging mosquitos and downing rakes of water to keep our motors from combusting, we filmed a sweet three minute video that I hope gives an idea of the vast pampa that is every present in these 19th century Irish Argentine songs of old.

                       

'Exile & Adventure' album, 'The Trackless Wild' film

 

Yesterday I launched the crowdfunding campaign for my new film and album. After more than a year of trying and failing to acquire funds officially, I'm turning directly to the public to help get this worthy work done! Help me resurrect the voices of these 19th century Irish migrants in Argentina. By pre-ordering the Cd/Vinyl (or the streaming of the film itself), you can be part of the process as it happens. Have a gander at the options on the following link... 

https://charlieobrien.net/crowdfunding

The Pampa's My Home

This is the first single from my coming album "Exile & Adventure, Irish Song of the Pampa and further Afar." I found the words to this song in a newspaper from 1873 called "El Monitor de La Campaña." In amongst prices of cattle and weather predictions appeared this poem, signed by a man that called himself "A Wandering Tip." 

The Pampa's my Home was recorded in Villa Allende in Cordoba, Argentina. Thanks to multi talented luthier Fabrizio Rizotto for helping me with the recording, which was performed on his beautiful 19th century piano. The Pampas are the wide grasslands synonymous with rural regions of Buenos Aires in which Irish settled in the 19th century.  This song will be the closing piece in a new documentary I’ve been working on called “The Trackless Wild.” The film will explore the crossroads between myself and "A Wandering Tip" who penned five songs published in that old Argentine newspaper of the 1870’s. With my resurrection of his lyrics, he time-travels to our timeline as I muse and sing my way into the past.

Steer my bark, steer my bark o’er the wild Pampa main,
O ye winds be more calm there are shoals on the plain,
I’m alone, I’m alone on a rough rolling foam,
My bark is now launched and the pampas my home,

Then farewell oh farewell to that isle in the east
On whose green covered mountains my eyes may ne’er feast,
It was there, it was there a happy gay band,
I first dreamed the dream of the great Pampa land

Then guide her, I’ll guide her for hopes at the prow,
Though the clouds are still black and the thunder peals now,
Ha! She’s struck, my barks struck by that flash from the sky,
She’s immersed and oh God am I doomed now to die?

No not yet oh! Not yet like a bird of the deep,
My good bark comes forth with a youths hopeful leap,
It is past, it is past, the wish farther to roam,
The anchor is cast and the pampas my home.

(El Monitor de la Campaña, June 1873).

Tierra Bendita (The Land of the Blest)

This Spanish translation of Gearld Griffin's 19th century Irish ballad, "The Land of the Blest," was completed by Spanish and Literature professor, Manuelita Palavecino, Marcela Acevedo and myself here in Castelli, Chaco in northern Argentina. I hope to record a live version of "Tierra Bendita" in coming months, heres a link to one in English from a few years ago. I was practicing the song recently along with folk musician Facundo Flores while on my tour of Buenos Aires and environs, though it hasn't had a live debut, yet! Facundo plays the tiple on it, a beautiful resonant Colombian instrument a bit like a twelve string guitar. We wound the song up from its lyrical and wistful sean-nós roots, giving it a definitive rhythm.

En los mares que esculpen tus tierras de sal,
una isla nació, misteriosa, cuentan.
Un oasis de sol, una isla de paz,
tierra bendita, Hy Brasil, sin mal.

Año tras año en aquel horizonte azul,
como espectro brilló lejano en su luz.
Un cielo dorado la cubría bien,
lejos, muy lejos, igual que el Edén.

Un soñador oyó el relato y partió.
Hacia el Oriente, su vela soltó.
Desde Ara, la santa, a Hy Brasil viró.
Aunque Ara era santa, el oeste eligió.

Lo llamaban voces, mas no las oyó.
El rugido del viento lo amenazó.
Su hogar, su gente y certezas dejó.
Un nuevo horizonte, allá lejos buscó.

Mañana de sombras se asomó en el mar.
Mas la distancia lo invitó a soñar.
Al mediodía, el gris con oleajes,
pálida, distante, en aguas, salvaje.

El crepúsculo cruel al viajero abrazó.
Atrás esta Ara con desazón miró.
Lejanía, horizonte, cielo y mar.
La tierra bendita, imposible alcanzar.

Ecos amigos, velas de hogar y sal,
en Ara está la vida y la libertad.
Iluso, por una quimera incierta,
trocaste tu vida de trabajo y paz.

Razón y advertencias silenciadas son.
El regreso a Ara, jamás vislumbró.
Tempestad, alba, un hechizo y un adiós,
y murió en los mares, lejos, muy lejos.

The Power Of Song, The Trackless Wild

Lately, I've been musing about the power of song. Song, in some ways, is like prayer, in that, it often seems no-one is listening, but the declarations and incantations can bring us to some unlikely, far flung, sometimes beautiful destinations. Though I'm not one for prayer, I do sing. And it is important to wish, to envisage, to sing, to remember. In my own case, whether it was myself or the songs that took me to those "wild places" I guess I'll never know, a combination of both I suppose.

Buckley's Bar, 2013

For the last few years I've been singing out two songs collected by Edmundo Murray in the Pampa's of Argentina. Edmundo is a founding member of SILAS or the Society for Irish Latin-American Studies. The songs were written in the 1870's by men born in Ireland, living on the Pampa's plains. They were put into print in a local paper ("El Monitor De La Campaña") at that time. It is there they survived to be picked up by Edmundo in recent years. Edmundo had the words, it was easy to breathe melody back into the lyrics. The first lyric tells us it is an Argentinian version of the famous air "The Home I left Behind." The second song, "The Pampa's Fairest Child," fits hand in glove with the air "The Mountains of Pomeroy." I've sung both all around the pubs of Kerry, in bars in Tompkins Square, New York and even out in Cuba. I've sung them beautifully, badly, when no-one was listening and when you could hear a pin drop. I've sung them drunk, sober, merry and sad.


"The Pampa's Favourite Child" details a courtship between a local woman and an Irishman. The song begins "Its not from home this fair ones come, though handsome is her mein." The other song "At E'r As Oer The Trackless Wild," concerns an older Irishman who has spent most of his adult life on the rolling Pampas of Argentina. He looks back with great fondness on "The Home I Left behind." Could that man imagine that his song would be woven into the fabric of new life in a new century through Edmundo collecting the words and my own incantations of the original writer's wistful and beautiful muse?


 

The Trackless Wild

At e’er as oer the trackless wild my saino* bounds along
My thoughts are of a pleasant land and of a gladsome throng
Of scenes no southern sun can scorch in memories verdant plains
Though bronzed may be the tenement where-in such fancy reigns

And as I reach that distant mount my thoughts come back again
And place before my longing eyes the children of the plains
Whose merry laughs recall the days of innocence and joy e’er
Cares and blighted hopes of youth could sweets of life destroy.

Yet little weep I for them both, my God steed and I
Are sailing o'er the Pampa plain beneath his care on high
And every bound my saino takes rewards a weary strife
And makes me gay and happy in this wilderness of life.

So hail La Plata! though by birth an exile from your shore
Adopted land both wild and grand and I’ll try to love you more
For freedom unadorned hold, last my roving mind
And help me scarce lament the land and home I left behind.


*Saino is a type of horse popular in Argentina.

Once I wrote a song about the San Patricio Battalion, I sung away to myself in English in an empty room in Glenbeigh, Ireland. I found myself singing that same song 10 years later in Irish, to an old Mexican lady in Vera Cruz. Edmundo Murray mentions the song in an article he wrote about Irish music in Latin America entitled "Una Poca De Gracia." I am well aware of the transformative power of song. Songs travel, and men travel with them. Sometimes people listen, sometimes they don't. That song led to me presenting a documentary about John Riley, the leader of the San Patricios. Just last night, I sang another song, "Johnny Dynamite Marine Mambí," to a guy from San Diego. The song was sung while people chatted, oblivious, all around, I had one listener, as far as I'm aware. I've sung that same song to Johnny's great-grandaughters in Arkansas, I've sung it to drunks, loved ones, enemies, amigos and deaf men. I've changed the words numerous times, to try and catch up with my own learnings on the man called "Dynamite John." That particular song and story took me all over the U.S. Cuba and Ireland in pursuit of the bright ghost of a wily mariner. In that way, song is like prayer-we may change the words, the place, the voice, but once it is sung at all, that is what matters.

Here is the last of the Argentinian songs "The Pampa's Fairest Child." It would be great if people would take the two Argentinian songs themselves and start singing them, they have had a hiatus of almost 150 years. Also, it would be mighty if this blogpost started some thought or discourse on the words. The first verse of "The Trackless Wild," in particular, sparks off some wildly beautiful images in my mind!

The Pampa's Fairest Child
By J. J. M.*

It's not from home this fair one's come
Tho' handsome is her mien
She's a fair lass none can surpass
Born on the Pampa's Plains.
My wishes keen have always been
And they still hold out unfailed
to love this dame unknown to fame
The Pampa's Fairest Child.

When I saw her today with her smile so gay
Cupid did me enchain
Perchance ere long if fortunes strong
Her affections I might gain
Her looks do show she's handsome O!
She leaves one all beguiled
Her winning glance I met by chance
The Pampa's Fairest Child.

'Tis natural for me living free
Among the gaucho tribe
To be carried away by a maid so gay
Whose beauty I can't describe.
Some people say I'm led astray
And harbour thoughts too wild
In loving one and others none
The Pampa's Fairest Child.

* 'El Monitor de la Campaña' N° 40
(Capilla del Señor, 25 March 1872)