24th March 2009
tHe pAsSiNg oF tHe ShEE
by Mike Scott

To commemorate the centenary (today) of the death of one of my favourite Irish writers, J.M. Synge, I've taken one of Synge's poems, set it to music and made a two-minute mad whirlwind of a record out of it. It's up on the myspace player now and later today it'll be available to buy as a download (along with another new track) from our website store.

Synge is most famous for his brilliant plays which include Playboy Of The Western World and Riders To The Sea, and his book The Aran Islands. He was a mate of W.B. Yeats and my recording of The Passing Of The Shee gives a faint kinda taste of the one of the flavours of the big Yeats music project I'm working on (which will become a stage show and album in 2010).

Here is Synge's wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Millington_Synge

And, in answer to a request from my superb wife, here is the lyric of The Passing Of The Shee:

Adieu, sweet Aengus, Maeve and Fand
ye plumed yet skinny Shee
that poets played with, hand in hand
to learn their ecstacy

we'll stretch in Red Dan Sally's ditch
and drink in Tubber Fair
we'll poach with Red Dan Sally's bitch
the badger and the hare!