Stand Closely By Me

If you click on the image of the scyther, it will link you to a video of him working. It's a beautiful rhythm! Open a second browser tab, and play it at the time as the song and you'll see why Dougie MacLean chose the pace of the song...

Fall is my favorite season, but I feel a little blue with the shorter days and colder temperatures till I acclimate - perhaps you feel the same way? But still, I love this time of year and the pensiveness it brings, the lovely cool walks, the warming beverages (and whisky!) A friend was feeling similarly pensive (a friend had passed away) and shared The Scythe Song by Scottish folkie, Dougie MacLean. It's one I was not familiar with but the lyrics and sentiment really caught me - the first verse makes me think of my father. Click here to listen, and here are the lyrics:

I still remember when I first watched him work the blade

It was down in the Buckney den, my questions tumbled and he said

O this is not a thing to learn inside a day

Stand closely by me and I'll try to show the way

You've got to hold it right, feel the distance to the ground

Move with a touch so light until its rhythm you have found

Then you'll know what I know

O wild are the ways we run when at last untethered out we fly

Straight into the burning sun, need no direction, no not I

But it is not a thing to learn inside a day

Stand closely by me and I'll try to show the way

You've got to hold it right, feel the distance to the ground

Move with a touch so light until its rhythm you have found

Then you'll know what I know

So little dancing girl you want to learn to play a tune

One that your heart can fill to help you shine under the moon

Well it is not a thing to learn inside a day

Stand closely by me and I'll try to show the way

You've got to hold it right feel, the distance to the sound

Move with a touch so light until its rhythm you have found

Then you'll know what I know, then you'll know what I know

My father died when I was eighteen. As the years have passed, I naturally think of him less, but sometimes I allow myself to miss him. Flawed as he was with quick judgements and temper, my father was also a patient teacher who could show how a thing was done, but then stand back and let you try it yourself, and I spent so much time as a little girl "standing closely by" to watch him. How amazing it is that a song can transport you so completely, and what a lovely, odd journey we are on, through changing seasons, changes in ourselves - "not a thing to learn inside a day."

CELIA RAMSAY & FRIENDS STORY

I wanted to share the joke I played on Eamonn Flynn at the August 14 show we had at the Freight & Salvage. When we were making arrangements for the show, Eamonn jokingly stated he wanted all purple M&Ms. This references the wacky requests frequently made by artists in their contract "riders" with venues. He was joking, of course, but I remembered that you CAN in fact, order single-color M&Ms, so I did. Weeks before the gig, they showed up and I saved them for the night of the performance when I put them in the Green Room...