Too often, I end up never getting to see my favourite musicians play, travel anxiety makes it difficult to see them in Dublin, and impossible to see them outside Ireland. And I can be so scatterbrained at times that they will come to play in my city and I will simply be unaware of it. But with Dick Gaughan, I couldn’t have been luckier, I have the good fortune to say that I have gotten to see him play live so many times that I couldn’t actually tell you how many times I’ve seen him play.
And seeing him live was such a fantastic introduction to his music. My friend asked me did I want to see a musician called Dick Gaughan, and I said sure, but I misheard him as saying “Dick Owen”, so, after looking up this musician on the internet, I concluded that he did not have an internet presence, and it would not be possible to get a taste of his music before getting to see him live. And let me say, seeing Dick Gaughan live, without any previous hearing of his music, that is the way to experience it. I hadn’t been primed to experience anything, by either hearing his music or reading reviews of it, and just, experienced the sound of Dick Gaughan’s vocals and guitar. The first time I ever heard a note of his music was seeing him perform right in front of me. What a privilege.
Handful Of Earth, released in 1981, is great for so many reasons it’s hard to know where to begin. If you’ve never heard much in the way of Scottish folk music before, this is a great way to get into it. It has got hands down, some of the best acoustic guitar playing I have ever heard. It has such beautiful descriptions of nature and wildlife that after this you’ll never want to be indoors ever again. So it’s hard to know where to start, but start I must, so here goes.
We start with Erin Go Bragh. From even the intro of this song, you already know that Gaughan’s guitar playing is really something special. He switches completely effortlessly from chords, to single note lead lines, to chords, and back again, to the point where you’d be forgiven for assuming there’s two guitars overdubbed on this track. But no, I’ve seen him perform live, and it’s the same effect, in fact, during some of his live performances it often sounds like it’s three guitars at once!
Now Westlin Winds is one of my favourite Dick Gaughan songs ever. Try to fight back the tears as you are treated to one of the most beautiful songs you will ever hear! The fingerstyle guitar on this is just mesmerizing and as always, the singing is just some of the best you will ever hear.
So let’s talk about Dick Gaughan’s singing. He possesses one of the most distinctive voices I have ever heard. While many singers will try and hit the highest notes in their range, Gaughan usually chooses to hit the lower notes, making for a very distinctive low baritone. And something that is too rare in most music is singers singing in their own accent. As a singer myself, I can say this is actually a complicated topic, if you’ve heard a lot of American singers, then singing in your own accent can actually by difficult, because you’ll default to an American accent without even realizing it. So because many singers tend to default to an American accent when singing, hearing that strong Scottish accent is a treat to the ears.
Craigie Hill sees Dick Gaughan singing slightly higher than he usually does, making for a very tender and heartfelt sound. And here he goes for a technique that would be fully realized many years later on The 51st (Highland) Division’s Farewell to Sicily, from his album Sail On. Where he plays guitar chords, and then simply lets them decay, the sound of the notes gradually disappearing into silence is simply beautiful.
The Snows They Melt The Soonest sees the guitar tuned to a popular tuning called DADGAD, a tuning Dick Gaughan has used many times, but here he fully exploits the ambiguity of the tuning, it doesn’t sound major or minor, which makes this song sound all the more haunting. And each note played here has a crystalline quality to it, that really takes me to another place.
But Scojun Waltz/Randers Hopsca takes you out of the quiet contemplative mood of the rest of the album. Now there’s a party going on, and you need to get up and dance! This duo of songs starts off with just acoustic guitar, then is joined by a second guitar overdubbed by Gaughan himself, and together they play the most wonderful harmonies. Then they are joined by fiddle and bass and the fun really begins!
Both Sides The Tweed sees Dick Gaughan taking the lyrics to an old song, about the Treaty Of Union between Scotland and England, adding some of his own lyrics to fit the context of the time in which he was living, and writing completely new music to fit the lyrics. With its synth and its electric guitar solo, this may have had purists running scared, but Dick Gaughan was never afraid of that. Several years previously, he was in a band called Five Hand Reel, an excellent band that combined Scottish folk music with rock music. But never would Dick Gaughan simply throw in a synth or an electric guitar in a vain attempt to be “modern”, no, these instruments would always be added to the song with an understanding of how they should fit in the context of the songs that they are played in.
So, if you’re coming to this album after listening primarily to rock music, you might be thinking, it sounds great and all, but why so many covers, why not more originals? Dick Gaughan talks about this here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170810090938/http://www.dickgaughan.co.uk/discography/dsc-redw.html
Nobody expects an actor to only star in films that they themselves directed or wrote the script for. If all singers are expected to be a songwriter and vice versa, then that puts quite severe limitations on who’s able to do either. Not every singer has the ability and inclination to write songs. Dick Gaughan detests the word “covers”, finding it extremely crass, and like Gaughan I prefer the term “interpretations”. And, do we really want to live in a world where, as soon as your favourite songwriter dies, there will never again by another live version of one their songs performed? Because that is the implication of a very strict expectation that people only play songs that they have written themselves.
Besides, these are not note for note versions of the original songs. Dick Gaughan, with his voice and guitar, brings new life into these old songs, introducing them to new people. Perhaps I would never have heard these wonderful songs if Dick Gaughan hadn’t played them. On later albums, he would more often write his own songs, and I’m glad he did, some of his best works were songs he wrote himself, but I think all of the songs Dick Gaughan has played that he didn’t write himself, would have been poorer without his interpretation of them. I can barely imagine a world where Dick Gaughan hasn’t “covered” Now Westlin Winds or The Snows They Melt the Soonest.
What struck me about this album, is how simply wonderful the descriptions of nature and wildlife are. For example this is from Now Westlin Winds:
Come let us stray our gladsome way
And view the charms of nature
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn
And every happy creature
And from Song For Ireland:
We watched The Galway salmon run, Like silver darting, dancing in the sun
And from the Snows They Melt The Soonest:
The snows, they melt the soonest when the winds begin to sing, The swallow flies without a thought as long as it is Spring
Listening to it at this time of year, February, makes me glad that the weather’s getting warmer and longer days mean there’ll be more time spent in nature. Listening to it now, after many years after coming back to it, I was close to tears several times. The way Gaughan describes nature and wildlife in these songs makes me feel such joy, despite the brutality often present in our world, and he’s performed many songs that cover that topic, this album reminds me that the world we live in really can be beautiful.
“World Turned Upside Down” and “Worker’s Song”, show the beginnings of what would very soon become a quite major part of Dick Gaughan’s work, songs that celebrate working people and poor people. and scorn those in power who always try to hold them down.
This is Dick Gaughan’s fifth solo album, and with any musician who has released quite a few albums, Gaughan having released twelve not including live albums and works with other artists, it can be very hard to answer the question of which one should you start with. But I think I’m willing to say, start with Handful Of Earth. It’s got some of his finest guitar playing, some of his best singing, but it also contains elements that would later become much more of a hallmark of his music in later years. Songs about the mistreatment of the working class. Songs about the greed of government and big business. And it showcases how he could have a great respect for these old folk songs without being a purist, to me his version of Both Sides Of The Tweed is the definitive one, with its organ, synth, and awesome harmonized electric guitar solo.
So, you could listen to me continue to drone on and on, or you could go listen to Handful Of Earth. I think we both know what you should do!
Ponderings Of An Autist 