Celts & Calamities
Posted at 6:00 AM on August 22, 2009
by Dale Connelly
(9 Comments)
The destructive potential of Hurricane Bill and a tornado causing havoc in Minneapolis served to remind us this week that we are entering a time for unstable weather and any number of bad things could happen. The best possible scenario is that no one gets hurt, but nature causes enough of a fuss to yield some interesting songs. In hour one of Radio Heartland on MPR News stations, I'll look through the library for music about earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and floods. Only a few of them are funny.
In hour two, I'll talk with two local legends for Celtic music - Dáithí Sproule and Laura MacKenzie. They're each having a great year, both winning individual Bush Foundation Artist Fellowships for 2009 and at the same time releasing a collection of duets called "The Pinery".
Though Laura and Dáithí both have many reasons to be personally cheerful, they'll bring us unsettling music - a song about kidnapping and death brought on by the mischievous wee folk and a heartbreaking barge ballad set in the Wisconsin Dells - not your typical scene for a Celtic tragedy.
That's tonight on Radio Heartland, from 9 to 11 pm on MPR News stations.
Comments (9)
Doh! it's saturday! it's so difficult being retired and only knowing what day it is by whether Dale is here or not :-)
good morning, All
try the alternative barb, how are the hormones in the barn this morning? hope all is well in blackhoof. i do enjoy your daily input.
looking forward to celtic angst tonight. i don't think it is as important that you have historically correct topics for celtic music, just tragedy and remorse. enjoy the weekend. counting down to the fair.
First things first. Last night's Dar Williams/Haley Bonar/Stephen Kellogg concert at the Zoo last night was fantastic. Stephen did a short but really fun pre-warm-up set and really got the crowd into a great mood. Haley had a slightly longer set but did a nice mix of new and popular songs. Then Dar came out and not only sounded great but was just a lot of fun. She specifically said that her interview with Kari Miller was great because Kari was so well prepared (not a surprise to anyone). Everyone sounded great for the packed house. Wonderful show!
Right, now that it's the weekend and I have a little more time than on weekday mornings, I've got some more time to do some searching. So, here's some flood, earthquake, tornado, and hurricane songs. Again, certainly not a complete list...but not a bad start...
‘Flood’ songs:
Coctueau Twins – Flock of Soul (“...Come feel the deep, It’s love in a flood...”)
Buddy Guy or Stevie Ray Vaughn – Texas Flood
Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
Lester Flatt/Earl Scruggs, The Band, or Bob Dylan – Down in the Flood
Bob Dylan – Before the Flood
Bruce Springsteen – Lost in the Flood
Procol Harum – Into the Flood
They Might Be Giants – Theme from Flood
The String Cheese Incident – 100 Year Flood
Ani DiFranco – Flood Water
Joe Ely – A Flood on our Hands
Grateful Dead – Wake of the Flood
Altan – Flood in the Holm
Leonard Cohen – The Letters (“...I said there’d been a flood...”)
Jim Reeves – Precious Memories (“...Precious memories flood my soul...”)
Leonard Cohen – Democracy (“...It’s coming like the tidal flood beneath the lunar sway...”)
Cat Power – The Greatest (“...And then came the rush of the flood...”)
Johnny Cash – Big River (“...And the tears that I cried for that woman are gonna flood you, Big River...”)
Neil Diamond – I am the Lion – (“...There was a flood and many poor men were killed...”)
Sting – Love is Stronger than Justice – (“...Love is a big, fat river in flood...”)
Nanci Griffith – Let it Shine on me – (“...Let it flood my soul...”)
Laura Veirs – Galaxies (“...Galaxies that flood the street...”)
Leonard Cohen – Take this Waltz (“...And I’ll yield to the flood of your beauty...”)
Leonard Cohen – The Gypsy’s Wife (“...These are the final days, this is the darkness, this is the flood...”)
Paul Simon – Nobody (“...When I am rising like a flood...”)
Loreen McKennitt – Annachie Gordon (“...So long on the sands, so long on the flood...”)
Bob Dylan – Yazoo Street Scandal (“...You know, I just ordered a flood for forty days and forty nights...”)
Bonnie Raitt – Storm Warning (“...There’s already been a flood of my tears...”)
Indigo Girls – Come on Home (“...The flood is here, it will carry you...”)
K.D. Lang – My Old Addiction (“...a flood upon the land...”)
Old Crow Medicine Show – Poor Man (“...along come a great big flood, washed everything away...”)
Dolly Parton – Wings of a Dove (“...When Noah has drifted on the flood many days...”)
‘Earthquake’ songs:
Beck – Earthquake Weather
The Changelings – Earthquake at Versailles
Jeff Beck – Earthquake
Nina Hagen – UFO (“...earthquake in Los Angeles...”)
Muddy Waters – You Shook Me (“...just like an earthquake moves the land...”)
Neil Diamond – Brother’s Love Traveling Salvation Show (“...Startin’ soft and slow like a small earthquake...”)
Leonard Cohen – Never Any Good (“...Dealing with the fire and the earthquake...”)
The B-52’s – Cosmic Thing (“...I don’t need no earthquake...”)
Matt Nathanson – Still (“...I remember non-stop earthquake dreams of you...”)
Paul Simon – Spirit Voices (“...Lord of the earthquake...”)
The Byrds – Precious Kate (“...To meet inside the center of a Californian earthquake...”)
R.E.M. – It’s the End of the World as We Know It (“...That’s great, it starts with an earthquake...”)
Ronnie Milsap – Earthquake
Sting – Towers Tumble (“...Not an earthquake...”)
The Flying Burrito Brothers or Uncle Tupelo – Sin City (“...This old earthquake’s gonna leave me in the poorhouse...”)
Bob Dylan – Black Diamond Bay (“...It seems there was an earthquake that left nothin’ but a Panama hat...”)
Frank Sinatra – At Long Last Love (“...Is it an earthquake or simply shock?...”)
Nina Simone – I Love to Love (“...Just build me an earthquake as fast as you can...”)
Johnny Cash – Man in White (“...it was on a Sabbath eve, there was an earthquake when He died...”)
Moxy Fruvous – Kasparov vs. Deep Blue (“...There’s an earthquake down the middle of the room...”)
The Wallflowers – I am a Building (“...Last summer was an earthquake...”)
Ziggy Marley – Beautiful Mother Nature (“...and her voice sounds like an earthquake...”)
John Hiatt – Madonna Road (“...What d’you think about the earthquake?...”)
The Stanley Brothers – Cry From the Cross (“...An earthquake shook Jerusalem...”)
Johnny Cash – Matthew 24 (Is Knocking at the Door) (“...I heard about an earthquake...”)
Steely Dan – Brain Tap Shuffle (“...Watch the walls and the ceiling quake...”)
Tori Amos – Concertina (“...the soul-quake happened...”)
‘Hurricane’ songs:
Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Like a hurricane
Bob Dylan – Hurricane (yeah, I know it’s about former boxer ‘Hurricane’ Carter but he got his nickname because they said he used to hit like a hurricane.)
Paul Simon – Hurricane Eye
Bette Midler – Hurricane
John Fogerty – Walking in a Hurricane
Neil Diamond – Hurricane
Kris Delmhorst – Hurricane
Tom Russell – Hurricane Season
The Flying Burrito Brothers – Eye of a Hurricane
Jonny Lang – Don’t Stop (for anything) (“...blow like a hurricane...”)
Little Feat – Red Steamliner (“...this hurricane livin’ been a lifelong song...”)
Catherine Feeny – Hurricane Glass
Bob Dylan – When the Ship Comes In (“...Before the hurricane begins...”)
The Rolling Stones – Jumpin’ Jack Flash (“...I was born in a cross-fire hurricane...”)
Bjork – Scatterheart (“...of the hurricane...”)
James Taylor – T-Bone (“...all night behind the hurricane wheel...”)
Bob Dylan – Jokerman (“...You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing.”)
Gordon Lightfoot – The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald (“...in the face of a hurricane westwind...”)
Kenny Loggins – Now or Never (“...Suddenly I’m in a hurricane and all around me voices in the wind...”)
Steve Earle – Red is the Color (“...North wind blowin’ like a hurricane house...”)
Indigo Girls – Trouble (“...a hurricane flag flappin’ in a bad storm...”)
Harry Belafonte – Jump in the Line (“...She’s a hurricane in all kinds of weather...”)
Buddy Guy – Feels Like Rain (“...Love comes out of nowhere, baby, just like a hurricane...”)
Rory Gallagher – Lonesome Highway (“...Well it sounds like thunder but it could be a hurricane...”)
Rilo Kiley – A Town Called Luckey (“...A stormcloud, a hurricane if you will...”)
Stevie Ray Vaughn – They Call me Guitar Hurricane
‘Tornado’ songs:
Aimee Mann – Little Tornado
Judy Garland – The Texas Tornado
Gaelic Storm – Tornado Alley
The Rainmakers – Tornado
Bette Midler – Oh My My (“...just like a tornado...”)
Calexico – Fractured Air (Tornado Watch)
Guy Clark – Tornado Time in Texas
Neko Case – This Torando Loves You
Dolly Parton – Comes and Goes (“...Now makes it spin like tornado winds as it comes and goes...”
They Might Be Giants – I’m Impressed (“...When that tornado from the West crushes buildings, I’m impressed...”)
Tom Waits – Emotional Weather Report – (“...With tornado watches issued shortly...”)
Buck Owens – I Was There (“...I was there when love came in like a living tornado...”)
The Fiery Furnaces – Gale Blow (“...A blizzard, tornado’s nose. But nothing, no nothing can beat this gale’s blow...”)
Don McLean – Magdalene Lane (“...Over the rainbow a Kansas tornado can twist up a girl’s head...”)
Eddy Arnold – Lovin’ Up a Storm (“...Like a Tennessee tornado, that’s the of love we share...”)
and, of course, any version of ‘Stormy Weather.’
Greetings! Barb, you may be retired from a job, but you're still a pretty busy gal with goats and all.
TGiTHAT -- you never cease to amaze me with the lists of songs you come up -- me thinks you must have an online source to come up with those!
As for me, I keep track of the day of the week by which karate classes I have and which part time job to do. Mondays we kick and punch on body shields, Tuesday is Sparring and conditioning, Wednesday is Pre-Test class for advance belt candidates, Thursday is all curriculum, Friday is Cardio Kickboxing and Saturday is Weapons and another Pre-Test class. Phew -- tired and sore today. Hope I can stay up late enough to catch show. Have a great weekend!
Thanks for the comments, all.
TGITH, you've given me a long enough list to lay waste to the whole of the Earth with earthquakes, tornados and hurricanes. I guess thanks are in order. I will use this power only for good.
It's Sunday and I'm wracking my brain trying to remember the name of the song that I think Peter Ostroushko plays. I think it was from the Minnesota Heartland series, but can't seem to find it. The title is somebody's or someplace's Farewell (I think the somebody or someplace starts with an A, but I can't for the life of me remember!) My husband heard it and loved it and I want to get the music for him, but I'm at a loss. Thanks for any help you can give, I'd really appreciate it!
Deb,
This isn't Peter Ostroushko playing it, but is the song you're thinking of Ashoken Farewell, which was used in Ken Burns' The Civil War?
Thanks, Dale! That was it!
Sorry, Kris, I read it too fast. Thanks for your help!
- Become a Member
- Member Connect Accounts
- Leadership Circle
- Sustaining Members
- Member Discounts
- Become a Sponsor
- Tax Information
- Planned Giving
- Vehicle Donation
- Donate Stock