I recounted all those songs and tunes about Hebridean islands that I could think of:
Mingulay Boat Song? No.
Eriscay Love Lilt? No.
Skye Boat Song? No.
.. and so forth.
Later I received a message from my friend, "I think it was called 'Dark Island', and that it was used as a theme tune/song for something."
My memory cells slowly activated.
"Yes, I have heard that title," thought I.
I searched the club archive, (that's [Ctrl + f] in spreadsheets.)
"I have it!" I declared triumphantly.
Indeed, Laurie is documented as have played such a tune on 29th December, 2017.
Here's Laurie's friend, Sophia ...
Research followed.
(Isn't the www a wonderful thing!)
Indeed there was a BBC mini-series broadcast in 1962/3 that was called The Dark Island.
The delightful melody was composed in 1958 by Iain Maclaughlan who used an obscure title: Dr MacKay's Farewell to Creagorry.
David Silver added lyrics and the song became known as The Dark Island.
(There is another set of words by Stewart Ross to the same melody.)
I have a YouTube friend, Tony, from the Isle of Man. He has covered almost every 'folk' song you would care to think of. Here's his rendition ...
Then Mike Oldfield got hold of it ...
There's more to Mr Oldfield than Tubular Bells!
2 comments:
There is another well known song about Tiree written by a singer/songwriter called Moira Kerr. Unsurprisingly called 'The Island of Tiree'. This song was kind of a Scottish hit - and covered by a few 'heather and haggis'singers. My late father's(Stewart Ross) lyrical version of the 'Dark Island', was written in 1963 (In the years long gone by... lovely dark island where memories stray'). This is a personal emigration lyric, mentioning no locations, but the tune was much altered. David Silver's more formal lyric (Away to the west..) is more of a straight fit to the tune. The BBC series was broadcast in 1962. The theme music was the instrumental, which became known as Dark Island for the series. It only had words set to it after the TV series had appeared.
Thank you, Alan.
All is now clear.
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