Der zweite Titel auf unserem Album „Triple Distilled“
MP4 herunterladen (5,9 MB / 5′ 55″)
Dieses Stück wurde im Dezember 2011 in der Radiosendung Celtic Heartbeat des britischen Senders BBC gespielt. Ansage und Kommentar von Frank Hennessy sind hier wiedergegeben. Auf dem Album waren sie nicht enthalten.
Transkription
[Ansage von Frank Hennessy]
[Musik endet sanft]
“Tommy Sands and Pete Seeger with ‘The Music of Healing.’ And Pete’s shaky, yet still powerful voice—so effective, isn’t it? In fact, in some ways, because of its fragility, it is even more effective. I love that song, I love that family: The Sands.
Greetings across the waters, my friends, from us here in BBC Radio Wales. May Ireland have a peaceful Christmas.
‘The Sands Family’ spent a lot of time in Germany, even though they’re massively popular over there; they toured in the 1970s to almost standstill. They were there for months on end, I seem to remember, and I know that the family still tour to this day.
There’s a big market for folk music in Germany, and one of my songs found its way over there. I was at a rather sad occasion: I was at a funeral of a friend not so long ago, and one of the members of a German folk band called Among Friends was at the funeral. Her name is Trude Johannessen, and afterwards we were talking about folk music, and we were discussing how songs traveled, how people picked up a song and saw something in it that they related to, and then they learned it and passed it on to somebody else, and that’s the oral tradition, of course, since time immemorial that so songs have traveled.
I never thought one of the songs that I’ve written would travel in that way, certainly to Germany, where apparently it is a very popular folk song, and this lady, Trude, said, ‘we’ve recorded it ourselves. I’m not sure about the Welsh pronunciation of the place names, but we’ve made a go of it and I hope maybe one day you’ll get a chance to listen to it.’
Well, I have heard it, I have the album here, ‘Triple Distilled’ it’s called, [chuckles] back on the booze, and this is ‘Among Friends’ from Germany’s version of ‘Farewell to the Rhondda’.
And if the place names are not absolutely perfect, I think it’s ten out of ten for the effort. Well done. Lovely to meet you, Trude, and maybe when next we meet, it’ll be under happier circumstances.”
[Farewell to the Rhondda Liedtext]
“Well, my father was a miner, and his father was before,
And they always have been proud to work below;
Since they fell ’neath Robens’ axe,
All the lads have got their sacks,
And away to work in England we must go!
[Refrain:] Farewell the colliery worker, the muffler and the cap,
Farewell you Rhondda Valley girls, we never will come back;
The mines they are a-closin’ and the valleys are all doomed,
There’s no work in the Rhondda boys, we’ll be in London soon.”
No more the chapel singing, for that long ago has left us;
In the public house no more the miner’s song;
For the population’s droppin’,
As the pit wheels are a-stoppin’,
And I can’t afford to stay here very long.
[Refrain:] Farewell the colliery worker, the muffler and the cap,
Farewell you Rhondda Valley girls, we never will come back;
The mines they are a-closin’ and the valleys are all doomed,
There’s no work in the Rhondda boys, we’ll be in London soon.”
Treherbert and Treorchy, Tonypandy and Tynewydd,
Ystrad Rhondda and Ton Pentre, all adieu
For I can no longer wait
While Parliament debates,
So a fond farewell I bid to all of you!
[Refrain:] Farewell the colliery worker, the muffler and the cap,
Farewell you Rhondda Valley girls, we never will come back;
The mines they are a-closin’ and the valleys are all doomed,
There’s no work in the Rhondda boys, we’ll be in London soon.”
[Refrain:] Farewell the colliery worker, the muffler and the cap,
Farewell you Rhondda Valley girls, we never will come back;
The mines they are a-closin’ and the valleys are all doomed,
There’s no work in the Rhondda boys, we’ll be in London soon.”
[Kommentar von Frank Hennessy]
“Dankeschön, my friends, thank you! There we have: ‘Among Friends’ is the name of the band, ‘Triple Distilled’ is the name of the album, and that was ‘Farewell to the Rhondda’ as you probably never heard it before. But it’s one of the nicest things that ever happened to me.
A similar thing happened when a man, a very famous french balladier called Renaud, recorded an album of Irish songs, and ‘Farewell to the Rhondda’ was included, but in French, ‘Adieu a Rhondda,’ and it went to number one in the week it was released.
So the Rhondda has done this Cardiff boy proud. Thanks to all those in the Rhondda, and everybody everywhere else who’ve recorded that song in whatever form.
I’ll play something from Renaud’s album, Balade irlandaise. I won’t play you ‘Adieu a Rhondda’ or any more of my songs because, well—modesty prevents. […]”
Musikrechte
Musik und Kommentar: Frank Hennessy / BBC, © ca. 1970 / 2011; wiedergegeben mit Erlaubnis
Arrangement und Aufnahme: Among Friends © 2004; alle Rechte vorbehalten