Elvis sings with The Chieftains , NY , March 17th 2006

[johnfoyle]

http://spaces.msn.com/politicsjj/Blog/c ... !439.entry

( extract)


3/20/2006

Paige and The Chieftains & Radio

Paige and I had a great time at Carnegie Hall. The Chieftains were fantastic. Before the group took the stage, a lady seated to my right asked if this was my first Chieftains show. I said yes, and she informed me “You never know what you’ll get with The Chieftains!” That my friends, was an understatement.

Wow, what an amazing show. The Chieftains have won many Grammy’s and the respect of their peers for years. On St. Paddy’s Day 2006, one of their peers stopped by unannounced for a song: Elvis Costello!

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http://seancrabtree.blogspot.com/



'Elvis Costello later teamed up for "Long Journey Home." A grand, sweeping production, the tune required full use of the entire orchestra and the small accompanying choir.
This commanding piece rocked every fiber of my being - it took great presence not to leap to my feet with pride for something, anything, as they soared to greater and greater melodic heights.
Incredible!'

posted by Sean at 3:48 PM

[Otis Westinghouse]

Don't know the song, I think, but wanna hear that one!

[martinfoyle]

Plenty of cheap copies here. Not the most melodic, but still a nice collection.

[johnfoyle]

http://ruminatinmind.blogspot.com/2006/ ... tains.html

Ruminatin Mind
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
The Chieftains

Lest you think The Chieftains was some sort of "hurdie-da-hoodie molly molloy she brooke me harrrrt aye let's raise a glass to her that's long nae dead" experience...I must say to you: Nae! It werren lyke thet et ull!

First off: These guys have been playing together for about 45 years now. They are elder statesman/craftsman at this point. They shared the stage with a cast of thousands, too: the Notre Dame symphony orchestra, 15 or so Irish dancers a la Riverdance (including Cara Butler--sister of Jean Butler, original lead dancer in RiverDance), bagpipers (natch!), and bastard upstarts The Cottars: a quartet of seventeen year olds who did everything short of weaving the audience a handmade rug and offering stock tips (really! everyone played three or four instruments! I didn't start hating them, though, until one of the vocalists [with a voice that made angels sigh] put a fiddle up to her chin and began a complicated solo while simul-freakin-taneously step-dancing).

At seventeen, the sum of my artistic proficiency involved identifying videos on MTV before the title information came up on the screen...

Elvis Costello came out to a standing ovation to sing a song he'd cowritten with the Chieftains for an upcoming movie. Can't remember the title but the chorus involved "Red, white and blue and green white and gold" and I couldn't help but think:

a) Marriage seems to be agreeing with him--he looks downright stocky. (He told Harry as much backstage--said his tux doesn't fit him anymore now that he's moved out to LA.)

b) Gold? GOLD???!!! Are you color blind, man? It's freakin ORANGE and I don't care how that screws with the meter of your ballad, it's still ORANGE!

The show ended with a big audience participation number that involved half the people from the seats joining the 28 million on the stage. Wow! I thought, these people at Carnegie Hall are pretty brave to let something like that happen...

"Yeah," Harry told us over Guinnesses afterwards, "they didn't mention that to us in the stage notes beforehand..."

Because this was not a Carnegie production--The Chieftains essentially rented out the hall for the evening--Carnegie did not provide a stage manager. The Chieftains, being old hands at the performance thing, created their set list on the fly. Just did whatever they felt like.

"They didn't tell us about the 15 step dancers, either." Harry continued. "Ripped the shit out of the floor. Still, it was an awesome show!"
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Along with the 1998 album the Elvis/Chieftains track 'Long Journey Home' is also on a new Chieftains compilation -' Each track has been newly remastered from the original recordings to provide crystal-clear sound' , says Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E6 ... 74&s=music

Essential Chieftains [ORIGINAL RECORDING REMASTERED]
Chieftains

# Audio CD (February 21, 2006)
# Format: Original recording remastered
# Label: RCA
# ASIN: B000E6EJ34

Disc: 2
13. Long Journey Home

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In the booklet with the 1998 disc - a soundtrack album - the director Thomas Lennon , in a note , comments -

'.... and Elvis Costello , who in ten minutes at his kitchen table found the lyrics to tell our whole story .'

Long Journey Home

(Composed: Elvis Costello/Paddy Moloney)

If on every ocean the ship is a throne
And for each mast cut down another sapling is grown
Then I could believe that I'm bound to find
A better life than I left behind

But as you ascend the ladder
Look out below where you tread
For the colors bled as they overflowed
Red, white and blue
Green, white and gold

So I had to leave from my country of birth
As for each child grown tall
Another lies in the earth
And for every rail we laid in the loam
There's a thousand miles of the long journey home

But as you ascend the ladder
Look out below where you tread
For the colors bled as they overflowed
Red, white and blue
Green, white and gold

[Otis Westinghouse]

b) Gold? GOLD???!!! Are you color blind, man? It's freakin ORANGE and I don't care how that screws with the meter of your ballad, it's still ORANGE!

The Foyles can correct me, but I think it's accurate to say that it's common to refer to the flag as green, white and gold in a Republican context to avoid the besmirching of the tricolour by the detested word 'orange' and all of its Protestant supremacist connotations. It certainly has no ring of unfamiliarity this way, and I think you often see it reproduced with a more golden tinge than orange. My wife says she learned it at school etc. (in Dublin) as 'orange' and it's possibly a fairly recent thing. Wikipedia doesn't have anything on this, anyone know anything more?

[johnfoyle]

'Red White 'n blue , the dirty English Fella/
Green , white 'n orange the proud Fenian Man '

- was one of the delightful little ditties that the priests used to beat into us back in my school days .

Happy days..........

[Azmuda]

Martin Fay of The Chieftains died yesterday.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ire ... 06600.html

http://www.thechieftains.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Fay

He played fiddle on St. Stephen's Day Murders and Long Journey Home.

[Otis Westinghouse]

RIP. Was Elvis on stage tonight anywhere? If so, hope The Parting Glass was played (as it was with Derek Bell) or hope it will at next one.

[Azmuda]

RIP. Was Elvis on stage tonight anywhere?

I piggy-backed the note about Martin Fay's passing on this old Chieftains thread, but I forgot to add the year (2006) to the thread title.

[Otis Westinghouse]

I'm not with you. I know this thread goes back to 2006 but I was asking if Elvis paid musical homage to him on hearing of his death this week, as he did when Chieftains harpist Derek Bell died.

[rightbrain]

Regarding "Gold" over "Orange" on the Long Journey Home, I seem to recall that one of the reasons Elvis could write the lyrics at the kitchen table in 10 minutes was that he nicked a bit from one of the Catholic Hymns he sang as a boy ("O Queen Of The Holy Rosary"). If you can find a recording online you'll note that a bit of the tune was borrowed from there as well. Below is the lyric "gloss" . . .

O Queen of the Holy Rosary,
O bless us as we pray,
And offer thee our roses
In garlands day by day,
While from our Father's garden,
With loving hearts and bold,
We gather to thine honor
Buds white and red and gold.

[Man out of Time]

Rather than start a new thread, I thought I would drop this in here - since there has already been a lively discussion of "Long Journey Home".

From time to time, I trawl YouTube for cover versions of Elvis' songs, to add to the "Covers" section of the Wiki. However, on this occasion, as chance would have it, I was browsing the archives of the Dayton Daily News (as you do) when I came across this story from April 2018 about a group called "Celtic Woman" playing in Springfield, whose programme included a version of Elvis Costello's "Long Journey Home".

I had a vague recollection of Elvis writing the song for the Documentary series of the same name, but was surprised to find it being sung 20 years later.

To cut a long story short, it seems that the song has now become something of a "standard" for artists working in the Irish/Celtic folk tradition. Much of the credit here must go to Paddy Moloney, who wrote the beautiful tune, but something in Elvis' lyrics also seems to appeal. It seems to be a favourite song with which to end a show, as the audience themselves contemplate getting back home. I have added a list of cover versions to the relevant page on the Wiki here: EC Wiki.

There are examples here, from Belgium, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands (a sea shanty choir) and the USA and wherever you think Rod Stewart belongs - perhaps somewhere Mid-Atlantic?

It is also a song that The Chieftains still perform. But there are some that didn't quite make the cut, because they were essentially school concert performances like this one:

YouTube

My favourite, I think, has to be this "mash-up" by Marina de la Cour in which the "Celtic Woman" version of the song, is illustrated with images from the film "Lancelot" and subtitles of Elvis' lyrics in a very cursive script.

YouTube

I am afraid the connection between the Irish diaspora and the Arthurian legend escapes me, but it looks very pretty....

NB - I have yet to find a version that substitutes "Orange" for "Gold" in the chorus.

MOOT

[Top balcony]

Cheers MooT

Ashamedly this is a new one on me, the soundtrack version available via this link : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkS-AUL ... q&index=14

Wonderful