Tuesday, 29 March 2011

The speed of sheep



By kind permission of my brother whose masterpiece this is.

4 comments:

  1. As you can tell from the persistent birds this charming piece of music actually was playing when I let this run.
    It took me a long time to track down what it was (that's iTunes Genius for you - wasn't one of the familiar ones) but eventually found it was Da Slockit Light written by the Shetland fiddler, Dr Tom Anderson MBE: "I was coming out of Eshaness in late January, 1969, the time was after 11 pm and as I looked back at the top of the hill leading out of the district, I saw so few lights compared to what I remembered when I was young. As I watched, the lights started going out one by one. That, coupled with the recent death of my wife, made me think of the old word ‘Slockit’ meaning, a light that has gone out, and I think that was what inspired the tune.”
    This version is by Paul Sartin & Benji Kirkpatrick who are part of an extant English folk band called Bellowhead. There are several versions online - I also rather like the one by Max Cohen here
    And in case you thought the front sheep was a cardboard cutout watch its ear at 3:31.

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  2. It doesn't get any better than this. I am off to put it in my favourites.

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  3. ElizT - I agree, perfect. Nothing to do with me, it's my brother's work. Compliment duly passed on.

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