| Author | Message | ||
     Marcia K Scurfield (Artmarcia) New member Username: Artmarcia Post Number: 1 Registered: 2-2004 |
Many of your songs seem to be somewhat autobiographical, but what is the story behind "Shannon"? I love the weaving of the voices, Gene's celtic drum--to me just the epitome of a GrooveLily song--synergy of all the talents. Beautiful tune, beautiful lyric. | ||
| Valerie Vigoda (Val) Moderator Username: Val Post Number: 2 Registered: 7-2001 |
So glad you like the song! "Shannon" was inspired by a trip to Ellis Island, and is a fictional story of a man escaping persecution and leaving Ireland. The two voices are the man and the river Shannon itself, which is his escape route to freedom and to America. I have some Irish ancestry, and have always been fascinated by the beautiful proverbs of the Irish; the words of the river in the choruses are taken directly from Irish proverbs. This was also the first song written on my Viper violin. | ||
| Marcia K Scurfield (Artmarcia) Junior Member Username: Artmarcia Post Number: 7 Registered: 2-2004 |
Two of my favorite lines--"May the dust of your carriage blind the eyes of your foe" and "So the sons of your daughters will smile up in your face". What a poetic way to say, "Do this so you will live a long and happy life and have grandchildren." They sound like Irish proverbs. My mother-in-law was born McGurk (100% Irish!) and many years ago I cross-stitched for her the Irish Blessing: May the Road Rise to Meet You, May the Wind Be Always at your Back, etc. I'm sure you've heard it. Another favorite: May you be in heaven half an hour before the Devil knows you're dead. Shannon is a very singable song and I catch myself singing it often. I'm pretty sure that the first time I heard GrooveLily on our public radio station--KMUW--taped from the last time you came to Moundridge, KS that the first hook for me was "No Room in Your Bag and the second was "Shannon". The whole song is just gorgeous--the violin, the celtic drum, but my favorite part is the interwoven voices near the end. I told Peter in Moundridge that it reminded me of another favorite song from my college days--"Scarborough Fair" by Simon and Garfunkel--that is, the weaving of the voices. | ||
| Ewan McNay (Ewan) Senior Member Username: Ewan Post Number: 29 Registered: 7-2002 |
I share the enjoyment of Shannon - maybe we can encourage GL to do more Celtic-sounding items?  And while the McNays were once irish, they lost one too many battles around 989... | ||
| Ellie MacNeil (Ellie) Senior Member Username: Ellie Post Number: 33 Registered: 7-2002 |
Oh, yes!!! That would be loverly, Ewan!! I always thought the drums in the recorded version of All I Want sounded slightly Celtic, too. | ||
| Marcia K Scurfield (Artmarcia) Member Username: Artmarcia Post Number: 8 Registered: 2-2004 |
And here I thought the drums in "All I Want" had a Native American influence. So Gene, what was the inspiration here? "All I Want" is another gorgeous song. My favorite GrooveLily song changes on an almost daily basis and "All I Want" was two weeks ago's favorite-de-jour. | ||
| Ed Mettee (Ed_mettee) Senior Member Username: Ed_mettee Post Number: 41 Registered: 11-2002 |
Welcome, Marcia! It's great to have another GrooveLily lover on board... and to think that I was blaming their booking agent for sending them to Nebraska and Kansas in the middle of winter! I'm glad that you were able to see them perform. What I can't figure out is, how is it possible that for Valerie, who has been with GrooveLily from the start, to have only 2 postings since July of 2001... whereas you, who only saw them a week ago, or so, to have 8 postings already? I'm not complaining... in fact your postings have brought tears of joy to my eyes. It's just my curious engineering observation. Has Valerie been posting under an alias, or something? Welcome to the flock, Marcia! --Ed | ||
| Marcia K Scurfield (Artmarcia) Member Username: Artmarcia Post Number: 9 Registered: 2-2004 |
Ed--I'm so glad to have discovered GrooveLily and this remarkable group of people--The Quality Music Revolution. Can you hear that "child of the 60's" flavor in my posts? I'm just hoping that it won't be a whole year before I can see GrooveLily perform again. They're coming to Ohio--specifically my alma mater--Miami University in Oxford in June. H-mmmmm. Time for a road trip? And when and where is the Lilyfest? I just discovered the discussion boards--I'll settle down--I promise. | ||
| Jim Greenlees (Jimgreenlees) Senior Member Username: Jimgreenlees Post Number: 182 Registered: 7-2002 |
Marcia, Don't feel guilty or embarrassed about posting -- the initial rush from GrooveLily is normal, and most of us here never outgrow it . Good things can come of it  . Revel in it, make it yours, and spread it about to people you know. I heartily endorse road trips for GrooveLily. Some of us are lucky in living in the Northeast or close enough that regular road trips aren't out of the question. LilyFest has been outside Princeton in the summer (for all two years of its existence); with GrooveLily continuing to expand their influence, who knows? Welcome to the fold. Revolution is inevitable, JimG | ||
| Gene Lewin (Gene) Moderator Username: Gene Post Number: 41 Registered: 2-2001 |
> And here I thought the drums > in "All I Want" had a Native > American influence. So Gene, > what was the inspiration here? Actually, I was going for more of a Jewish Jungle kinda vibe ... Seriously ... that rhythm started out as a clapped rhythm that Val would start and the audience would continue ... the original live version was completely a capella. I originally played the drum part with mallets (and that's probably how I'll do it live since it sounds so much better) but we used some unique micing techniques (thanks to producers Tarrow and Milburn) to get a great sound from hands on the tom toms. Probably way more detail than you wanted, but hey, *that* never stopped me! -Gene | ||
| Dave Florio (Dave_florio) Senior Member Username: Dave_florio Post Number: 43 Registered: 7-2002 |
Yeah, what's up with Val only having 2 posts?? ;-) Welcome, Marcia. You've made a great choice in music! These three are the absolute best! Not to mention some really wonderful fans - I'm a better person because of 'em. Dave | ||
| Rob Bond (Rob) Senior Member Username: Rob Post Number: 295 Registered: 7-2002 |
Marcia, I seem to remember ransacking the Discussion Board when I got "bit" with the GrooveLily bug a few years ago. Great to see someone else with the same "problem" as I had (or should I say "have" ). Be sure you check out the Road Tales section of the site (behind the scenes stuff, written mostly by Valerie). There is a lot of great information in there. Also, read through the press articles (although don't believe everything you read ). Regarding Valerie only having a handful of posts on the Discussion Board, I think she must be posting using my username, because I have an embarrassingly high number of posts on my "post odometer".  ---Rob | ||
| Terry Bond (Terry) Senior Member Username: Terry Post Number: 36 Registered: 7-2002 |
I thought Rob was going to clear the whole Val 2 postings thing up (or maybe Gene), but neither of them did. So here goes. I assume you've all based your assumption on the fact that in Val's most recent post, it said Post Number 2. At one time the discussion board didn't track the number of postings and didn't have categories like Member, Senior Member. Val has more than 2 postings. They were just posted before it was tracked. Terry | ||
| David Kowalski (David) Senior Member Username: David Post Number: 118 Registered: 12-2001 |
which must mean that Rob's count should actually be 1295! --David |
