Your Favourite..........

[Lowkey]

"Favourites" threads can be handy for discovering things you might never have come across otherwise.

We'll start with songs that aren't very well known

A few of my own favourites, all can be found on the YouTube obviously.

Letter to the 1% - Lowkey(it's not me, I'm just a big fan)  A rap/song about wealth and power inequality with a lot of historical references. I find it very powerful and it presents an anti-imperialist look at the world that we don't really get in our history books and documentaries in this part of the world. He has some very powerful songs about Palestine too.

Sunshine on Leith - The Proclaimers - The Hibs song, as sung after they won the Scottish Cup for the first time in over 100 years. Maybe everyone is aware of this one already though.

Red Army Blues - The Waterboys - song about a young Russian lad going off to fight in WW2

Happiness is a Butterfly - Lana Del Ray.
Macklemore - Hind's hall
      & Hind's hall 2
Immortal Technique - The 3rd World

[Milltown Row2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fknqv8lPWs

This wee number is great when driving home on a Friday afternoon or on Alexa when cooking dinner..

Songs can be thought provoking and have great meaning to them which helps tell and story and open it up for more audiences but I prefer a great tune

Good idea also to have out the best meaningful songs, Something inside so strong by Labi Siffre was great at the time

[seafoid]

Fred again Delilah https://youtu.be/2_64XAqYgJ0?is=g5lMKocVlSzoUpBR

Reminds me of the teams that lose and come back to win the All Ireland.

[quit yo jibbajabba]

Knew about Hinds Hall but not the second one, nice one

Fred again - had never heard of them but caught that at Glastonbury that year, quality

Similar to this one for me, LCD Soundsystem All my Friends

https://youtu.be/WqxRFxseT98?si=EiyqeqrZ9Fd0OsqN

Never would've called myself a Blue fan, fell into their live Wembley show few weeks back, Narcissist

https://youtu.be/ofkxclyYUWg?si=MtWpiflHXWVXi5Og

[quit yo jibbajabba]

https://youtu.be/S2rOh6dCwao?si=w7gioOBypmFD2fb3

Stevie Nicks getting ready for a show back in the day

I'll be quiet now for a bit lol

[Ronnie]

Knew about Hinds Hall but not the second one, nice one

Fred again - had never heard of them but caught that at Glastonbury that year, quality

Similar to this one for me, LCD Soundsystem All my Friends

https://youtu.be/WqxRFxseT98?si=EiyqeqrZ9Fd0OsqN

Never would've called myself a Blue fan, fell into their live Wembley show few weeks back, Narcissist

https://youtu.be/ofkxclyYUWg?si=MtWpiflHXWVXi5Og

One of my favourite songs from the last 20yrs.  Great shout

[RedHand88]

Muse - Take a bow
Arcade Fire - crown of love

[Mourne Red]

Embrace - Ashes
The Feeling - Sewn

[gallsman]

Not familiar with that song. Who's it by?

[seafoid]

Irish lullabies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhPF_eH1oW4

[Lowkey]

Great stuff lads, a few good songs there I enjoyed and will listen to again.

A chance to show how deep and sophisticated/pretentious we all are....

Your favourite pieces of poetry.

This is Stephen Murphy's performance  in Billy Keane's pub at an event called The Healing(as far as I could gather) of his own poem "Before you push the Chair". As you might guess from the title, the subject matter is heavy, but it's powerful stuff. It's so moving that Billy calls a break after it, says you couldn't follow it.

https://youtu.be/27OJw9YcEy8?si=oU4VYltlb34Iqp_y

[seafoid]

Poetry is hard to pick one

An t-Earrach thiar
Fear ag glanadh cré
De ghimseán spáide
Sa gciúnas shéimh
I mbrothall lae:
Binn am fhuaim
San Earrach thiar.

Fear ag caith eamh
Cliabh dhá dhroim,
Is an fheamainn dhearg
Ag lonrú
I dtaitneamh gréine
Ar dhuirling bháin.
Niamhrach an radharc
San Earrach thiar.

Mná i locháin
In íochtar diaidh-thrá,
A gcótaí craptha,
Scáilí thíos fúthu:
Támh-radharc síothach
San Earrach thiar.

Toll-bhuillí fanna
Ag maidí rámha
Currach lán éisc
Ag teacht chun cladaigh
Ar ór-mhuir mhall
I ndeireadh lae;
San Earrach thiar.

A disused shed in Co Wexford
A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford

By Derek Mahon
Let them not forget us, the weak souls among the asphodels.
                                                                           —Seferis, Mythistorema

(for J. G. Farrell)

Even now there are places where a thought might grow —
Peruvian mines, worked out and abandoned
To a slow clock of condensation,
An echo trapped for ever, and a flutter
Of wildflowers in the lift-shaft,
Indian compounds where the wind dances
And a door bangs with diminished confidence,
Lime crevices behind rippling rain barrels,
Dog corners for bone burials;
And in a disused shed in Co. Wexford,
 
Deep in the grounds of a burnt-out hotel,
Among the bathtubs and the washbasins
A thousand mushrooms crowd to a keyhole.
This is the one star in their firmament
Or frames a star within a star.
What should they do there but desire?
So many days beyond the rhododendrons
With the world waltzing in its bowl of cloud,
They have learnt patience and silence
Listening to the rooks querulous in the high wood.
 
They have been waiting for us in a foetor
Of vegetable sweat since civil war days,
Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure
Of the expropriated mycologist.
He never came back, and light since then
Is a keyhole rusting gently after rain.
Spiders have spun, flies dusted to mildew
And once a day, perhaps, they have heard something —
A trickle of masonry, a shout from the blue
Or a lorry changing gear at the end of the lane.
 
There have been deaths, the pale flesh flaking
Into the earth that nourished it;
And nightmares, born of these and the grim
Dominion of stale air and rank moisture.
Those nearest the door grow strong —
'Elbow room! Elbow room!'
The rest, dim in a twilight of crumbling
Utensils and broken pitchers, groaning
For their deliverance, have been so long
Expectant that there is left only the posture.
 
A half century, without visitors, in the dark —
Poor preparation for the cracking lock
And creak of hinges; magi, moonmen,
Powdery prisoners of the old regime,
Web-throated, stalked like triffids, racked by drought
And insomnia, only the ghost of a scream
At the flash-bulb firing-squad we wake them with
Shows there is life yet in their feverish forms.
Grown beyond nature now, soft food for worms,
They lift frail heads in gravity and good faith.
 
They are begging us, you see, in their wordless way,
To do something, to speak on their behalf
Or at least not to close the door again.
Lost people of Treblinka and Pompeii!
'Save us, save us,' they seem to say,
'Let the god not abandon us
Who have come so far in darkness and in pain.
We too had our lives to live.
You with your light meter and relaxed itinerary,
Let not our naive labours have been in vain!'

[Puckoon]

At the 1:00:34 mark a man named Declan Forde has a hybrid poem/song. I believe it's called Annie and Pat, a beautiful story of love and eventual loss. I heard it decades ago at Owen Smith's Fernagh Cottage when my dad would drag me to trad and culture nights in stead of sitting at home watching Eurotrash or the like.

That's one of my favourites of anything.
Also used to love a bolognese cheese and chip outta Spudz after closing down Benedicts but that was less cultural.

[seafoid]

Fred again.. - Delilah (pull me out of this) / Billie (loving arms) | Glastonbury 2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_64XAqYgJ0