Princess: Regarding songs which evoke strong 'homeland' feelings, two come to mind. I spent WW2 with my grandparents in Sheffield, my grand dad, an old paddy tinker, used to sing songs just for me, one in particular registered, it was "Brennan on the Moor' which takes place close to Sligo on the west coast of Ireland which is where his family was from and his name was Martin Brennan, he used to tell me that the song was about his grand dad and I believed him. The other is "The leaving of Liverpool" which doesn't have a direct personal connection, but I did live in Liverpool and I did leave for California, it does touch a chord. My version would be 'The leaving of Heathrow'. But anyhow the folk music revival happened just about the time I landed here so when I heard the Clancy Brothers singing MY song, couldn't believe it, all those memories of the old bloke came flooding back and I KNEW he'd been telling the truth. So here it is, cry along with me....
A p.s.: A thought I've had re. this group is the nature of being an expat and I know there's a few of us, Is that a topic that anybody here would like to discuss?
7 comments:
Oh yes I can, see why. Particularly the Leaving of Liverpool. Sniff. I suppose my equivalent of that would be "I'm gonna leave old Durham town" by, er, Roger Whittaker....
I liked those, The Leaving Of Liverpool reminds me of The Last Thing On My Mind by Tom Paxton.
Re being an expat, well, I come form a long line of expats. From the 17th century, to my father choosing to go to Cameroon instead of doing his military service and meeting my mother there (who then expatriated herself), all my brothers and sisters are expats. I left the place I grew up in (which isn't the one I was born in), Paris, at 14, but until a couple of years ago it was still what I considered my "home", helped by the fact that we still have the house I grew up in. However, London gradually became my home, the place where I feel good. I have no problem with Paris, but I don't feel as comfortable as I used to. Now I'm somewhere else, and after a while, I guess the places don't matter as much as my family, because we always try to come see each other. My parents always make an effort to come visit us wherever we are, let's see if that includes Brazil too.
Hope you get to see les parents sometime Ejay. They're in Geneva right? Wonder how the flights work from there. Via Paris probably?
Most probably, frequent fliers that they are. I should mention that they have already planned to come here in May, it'll be their first time here.
Nice one. Show them a good time. Do they speak portuguesh?
Not a word, and despite having spent 4 years in America they still struggle with the English. Here in Sao Paulo it's Português, with a proper "s". It's very different than Portuguese, um Portuguese. I barely understand it myself.
Ejay: I tried to put down some thoughts on the expat business but being a verbose sod I couldn't get it down in a reasonably succint way, I need to work on it. It deals with what you find and what you lose.
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