a little rest and then the world is full of work to do

Sometimes it startles me how much like my Dad I am. I'd just gotten back from yoga, I was a sweaty nasty wreck so I clicked on a playlist and took a quick shower and came out with a blue towel around me and my stripy red towel around my head and I walked into my room and this was the song that was playing




and I had to sit down on the end of my bed amidst the pile of (clean) laundry I'd dumped there earlier, and as if in prayer bowed my head and listened. And I heard Tommy Makem's voice, and Dad's voice, and even Peters voice move in and out of it. I've heard the song a thousand times, it always confused me because it was sung as an Irish ballad but they mention "back home to Australia..." It's the simplest chord progression right through it, based around I-IV-I also known as the "Amen cadence" it's a progression that moves me quickly to tears. I remember Dad singing this, picking at his guitar as he'd sing the verses while staring out at the beach as though lost, he'd never make eye contact when singing this. I don't think he could. and thanked Christ there was no one there waiting for me I always felt like I was watching his heart break when he sang it, as though it took him into a world from which he couldn't be retrieved. I think he identifies less with the weary old heroes and more with the young man who goes to war, instilled with patriotism and the hope for glory, handed a tin hat and a gun and returning in this silent, unspeakable horror of what they've seen; how different from what they'd imagined. So I sat and I listened and I bit my lip and felt this sadness move through me imagining my father as a young man, surrounded men who felt that bright optimism of heroic pursuit, and him stranded among them, knowing in a way that I think I grew up knowing as well, that there is a piece to this life that our humanity wasn't designed to experience; we cannot withstand it, we cannot process it, we can only weep.

The song that came up next was this


as though I hadn't been wrung out enough. This is an Irish lullaby performed by the Clancy Brothers that I've heard since I was very, very little but only understood within the last few years. It's another one that pulls my father out of the room when he plays it, the poetry, I think, is so gentle. What I love about this recording is how the voices treat the consonants, really leaning on them, singing through them, but cleanly the October winnnnds lammmennnnt arounnndit's really a beautiful technique because it allows the phrase to continue, uninterrupted by consonants which can sometimes be so percussive that it stops the phrase, the musicality of the piece. It's a technique we practice with the bcc kids often so their syllables set together fluidly. This piece has always broken my heart. Always. It's also based on that I-IV progression but it's the move to iv (minor six) and is so achingly beautiful- for example what the music does under the words yet peace is in her lofty halls. I can't wait to sing this to my children.

Sing hushabai lú lá lú ló lán, sing hushabai lú ló lán