michael lambe's scrapbook

Last Christmas, at home, my old friend Mike Potter (aka Big Lanky Geordie – even though he’s not a Geordie!) introduced me to the music of Rachel Unthank and the Winterset. I immediately fell in love with them and their music and ordered myself a copy of The Bairns. These are lovely, smoky, earthy songs sung in haunting harmonies, backed by fiddle, cello and piano and also sometimes their stomping feet.
This next one is my favorite song. Click the audio button to hear it (if the button doesn’t appear after a few seconds right click on the Mp3 link to hear it on a separate page). I’ve posted the lyrics below.

Audio Mp3

Blackbird

I know why the blackbird sings
A song so pure that comes from his heart
He sings for his love who won’t come back
He sings because he is sad

He sings because he is glad
He sings because he is free
Free to love somebody else
Now he has abandoned me

I know why my baby cries
She cries for the love she’ll never have
The love that will take her far away
So far she never comes back

Come back, come back, come back
Come back, come back, come back
Come back, come back, come back

We are just a break in the waves
We are just a feather in the storm
Windward or taken by the tide
To places we call home

I know why the blackbird sings
A song so pure that comes from his heart
He sings for his love who won’t come back
He sings because he is sad

I can listen to that time and time again… Anyway, in recent months they have been both nominated for a Mercury Music Award and today, no less, they are on boingboing – which effectively means they’ve gone global! Not bad for a group of clog-dancing Northumbrian folk musicians. I wonder when they are coming to Japan?

Here are some more (downloadable!) mp3 clips from The Bairns.

You can order The Bairns on CD from amazon.com, amazon.co.jp, or amazon.co.uk.