KelticDead Music Broadsides

PDF Views of the Stories (with Sheet Music and Audio Links)
Arranged in Alphabetic Order

Ballad of Impossible Tasks  

Also known as "Scarborough Faire." This is the older, traditional version.

Banks of the Pontchartrain 

Also known as "Lakes of the Pontchartrain" Americana-Celtic from around the 1830s. 

Black Velvet Band  

While on the surface this just seems like a seafaring ballad about a man who was betrayed by a pretty colleen in the 1800s, the story behind this sad tale involved a series of events from the Penal Laws imposed by Queen Elizabeth I to subjugate the rebellious Irish that then triggered a very complex penal servitude and "transportation" system that lasted well into the 20th Century.

Herr Mannelig
(Dear Mankind)

Old Scandinavian Song about the "Eternal Temptation." Northern European and Mongolian Origins.

Out on the Ocean 

This melody is often associated with the boatmen of the currach boats. Scots-Irish origins.

Over the Hills and Far Away

This melody is associated with those Irish "Wild Geese" and why there is resentment between the Irish and English.

Saint Anne's Reel  

Most folk never think about Mary the mother of Jesus Christ as having a mother as well. This story is about Saint Anne, the grandmother of Jesus Christ. This tune is very popular in eastern Canada and in Brittany, France.

Sally Garden or Down by the Sally Gardens     

W.B. Yeats wrote a poem about a man trying to rush love while he was in a Willow (salaigh) Garden. 

Sighbeg, Sighmor   A KDM Variant Arrangment   

This is a KDM Variant of Turlough O'Carolan's greatest tune.  

Those Were The Days    

Originally, this melody was composed from a Russian Gypsy song, and the lyrics written in 1926 as "On the Long Road" as a "lost love" ballad. It was immensely popular through the 30s and 40s, and in the early sixties, Eugene Raskin and his wife rewrote the lyrics as an "old friends," ballad. Eugene gave it to Paul McCartney and Mary Hopkin as a song made public with credits given.