Seonaid Wolf sent me a single verse written to fit O'Carolan's harp air Sheebeg and Sheemor (which can be spelled in many ways). She asked me to 'look after' the words for her and let others hear them.
singer
songwriter
acoustic
folk
british
guitarist
song
celtic
traditional
fingerstyle
scottish
scotland
guitar
kelso
Story behind the song
A newsgroup visitor, Seonaid Wolf, asked questions about Carolan's most famous and first harp tune. I suggested it should be played with variations, and that it did not have any words - perhaps being considered not the right way to treat the tune. Seonaid, however, responded with this verse acquired by the same method as O'Carolan; by dreaming. It is not an unusual way to write poetry or lyrics and several of my own songs have been based on verses invented during that productive phase of dreaming before waking up. The words struck me as fairly appropriate; they are very similar to the type of verse from Highland Gaelic faery songs, and although there are words I would say are outside the celtic vocabulary ('fen' for example) I am happy to attempt to sing them as well as I can in this context.
Lyrics
O'er meadow and moor, througn the fen and forest
Weeping in the cold wind for the one I love
So lost, so lost, alone I strayed
To the shadowed hills where faeries played
In the mist they danced whispering their words o'er my broken heart
Magic words of love brought her back to me
In their light, one night, one night
For ever in my longing heart is that night