This recording started as a fund-raising project to get my family to the 2013 Oirechtas (Irish dance regional competition). I hadn’t performed in front of an audience for more than a year and I’ll admit to being a little rusty, but of all my recordings, this one is perhaps the most honest.
My Heart’s Tonight in Ireland
Written by Andy Irvine of Planxty who, at the time the song was written, was playing in a band called “Sweeny’s Men.” It’s a song about the hardships and (even more) joys of being a folk performer.
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I Will Set My Ship in Order
(c. mid-1800’s) The singer puts his ship in order to sail to his true love. He arrives wet and tired, knocks at her window, and asks her to let him in. She sends him away, and he leaves. She changes her mind, but is too late.
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Ruby’s Reel (The Two Finches)
The first song I ever wrote after getting a phrase looper, a device that records what I play into it then plays it back, allowing for a layered performance. Birthday money from my wife’s mother and grandmother bought the device, and so I named the first tune after her grandmother, Ruby.
The Irish Girl
First found in print around 1930 in a book called “The Maine Woods Songster”, this is a pretty song about unrequited love.
Go, Move, Shift
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/73543
McConville’s
Sally Garden
Caledonia
Autumn ’45
Whiskey Before Breakfast
Armstrong’s Goodnight