The Ecology of Song

I gaze deep, deep and far,

Shadows, hedgerows, fields of wild.'

Ros Brady

Seventy years ago John Steinbeck’s book ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ spoke of an apocalyptic world, soil eroded into dustbowls, ecological destruction, livelihoods lost. Now we hear similar stories every day, stories of storms, floods, droughts and financial collapse. In the UK despite rural initiatives, bio-scientists still predict a rapid loss of species of flora and fauna. Though the nest is breaking the bird still sings. The breath is after all a force of nature.

Ros Brady has travelled the deep lanes of England, the sandy loams, clay soils, and resonant caverns writing songs from the heart of a peopled land. Her recent tours with BaronBrady have led her on to write a host of beautiful, raw, haunting songs. Among the many are lyrics based on correspondence and interviews with individuals passionate about the future: a world-famous inspirational ecological thinker, a young Worcestershire beekeeper, a scientist measuring the melting glaciers of the Antarctic, alongside a chorus of those who remember the older ways before industrial farms and supermarkets plotted the path of the plough.  

Ros began writing songs with farmers in the same way that Ewan McColl did 40 years ago with the Radio Ballads. McColl sought to comment on social upheavals taking place in his time by writing songs through interviews with ordinary people, ‘setting their emotional memories in full flight’. Picking up this idea Ros wrote with farmers and fishermen, orchard growers and masters of rural trades in the South Devon where she lived but she has also developed the method in order to write with thinkers and visionaries of our time; this work brought her a profound sense of place and love of the county.  

While talking to the older generation, those who remember the traditional ways of land use which have proven to be sustainable over time, Ros found that her passion for songwriting was bringing her to rich and controversial ground.  She says, “Hopefully in an unselfconscious way, my songs speak of the deflowering of the landscape, a change that has taken place through a systemic change since the First World War. But they also speak of a possible future.   Where should we go from here?  It doesn’t have to be like this. It feels like we’re swinging back and forth between two poles. But there is a place in the centre, a place of balance, of harmony. It is this place that I aim to write from.”

Whether from the hedgerow flowers, the ploughman’s toil, the small-holder’s vision, the orchard’s weight of fruit, or the love shown by those who work with hope for change, Ros Brady draws her thread and stitches together tender and poignant songs in which we may see a world on the brink of change, and a map for a brighter future.

 Ros is working on this project with fellow musicians Ken Nicol (of Steeleye Span), Flossie Malavialle, Nick Hennessey, and Luka Bloom.  She is hoping to make a recording of the project as a precursor to a heavy horse and caravan tour for which she is currently applying for funding.

Published Writings:

 Rosalind has had an essay about her life and work featured in an anthology Published by Green Books, with other contributors such as Hunter Davies, Penelope Lively, Brian Pattern.  She has had work published in wildlife magazines and has been touring the UK for 3 years with duo BarronBrady.     

BarronBrady Reviews

“Terrific...I kept hearing lots of stuff, Incredible String Band, Nick Drake, John Martyn and yet at the same time their music is very much their own”  Mike Harding BBC

        “Beautiful music” Bob Harris BBC

Sunday

If you have a moment please listen to this heart-felt song Si and I have just finished arranging.  It is a preview track for our album and live performance

Back to Sunday...

Watched dogs dig hole, hide bone, dig bone up and run off – Oh if only life were that simple.

I suppose one could draw a comparison with songwriting if I wanted to devote the mental effort  to it.  Right now just typing hits page is a huge effort as my typing skills are negligible.

Then I watched cows through hole in garden wall.  They are gorgeous girt great red Devonshires remind me of dark red Devon Soil in the Dart Valley – they are excellent for propagating wild flowers apparently and for good soil health-something to do with their grazing patterns across the fields- I watch and try to learn about this from observation...

Dogs ran away.One of them  reappears round front of house.  Lesson; dogs are extremely wayward. Si on the stairs heaving up hefty speakers... having just spent rather more than I want to think about on them.  O Bloody hell-I think, this singing lark is looking a bit too serious. 

I then make a mental note-to try and spend  the Sundays I get to spend at home, in the garden and the wider landscape, in the woods and the fields.

 Very excited about the Great Hall gig at Dartington.  I was going to write a song about the demise of the place- but haven’t the heart to.

Best wishes to you all and I hope you have a restful day in amongst all the business of our lives.

Rosalind

Chester Fest

In a field putting finishing touches on a song I have written through correspondence with a beekeeper.  A red spotted faun runs through the field just as I am wondering have I got this right.

Chester Festival was wonderful.   Wonderful 60’s feel.  Views of mountains – fabulous people, flowery fields and the best chips in Cheshire.

Good to be back working on new material for Dartington Hall gig in July.

Once

Once I was very very ill and I re-read the books of my childhood

One of them being the Observer Book of Wild Flowers,

Published in 1951.

A gift from mother

 It described flowers I had never seen and a world I had not seen. 

 I had a dream of a world filled with such flowers and such life as there once must surely have been.

Years later I travelled  through mountains to a farm and I awoke on the 7^th August 2007 and I walked out  at dawn into the fields.

 I climbed a hill and I turned and I saw it: the luminous landscape of my dream rising out of deep, brown soil in brilliant sunshine under a cloudless blue expanse. 

 Then I wrote this song.......

It’s the first time I have been at the wheels of control(digital mixing machine)

I need to go back to the woods now to regain my composure.

Law of Return

Gigs this week

I’m going to sing or rather we are at the Granary Theatre at Wells-next-the-Sea, Norfolk on Thursday – then Waveney Folk club: Lowestoft, Norfolk NR32 1SG

By hook or by crook I shall sing Rose of Allendale

Poetry Morning

I who have never been

A generous or keen

Friend of working on a Sunday, must now confess

Myself professor of pure foolishness

And driven by sheer force(Simon)

To alter course

Must shift my sails and voyage back

To think again upon a different tack.

I was reading poetry all morning

Writing – let the dust spin,I’ll do no hoovering

Let the whole day go hang

I will sit among the garlanded(an archaic term for moosing around)

I’ve done my duty(gig this week in Notts)

Bum to the rest

Now I shall indulge in John Donne and Theocritus

Tea,  cake and mellow cream

I’ll never sing again

I’ll buy a small farm

Just a house with a little land

And watch the sun tickle out

The new leaf along the branch

Drink hot chocolate

And sing rediculous rhymes

Then I went to sing and write part for the harmonium to ‘Rose of Allendale’

because if one more person says – you should do more songs on the harmonium I shall pop.  Si won’t agree what I have written -  or it won’t agree with him.

He’ll get indigestion

I’ll get upset

And somewhere in the dialectic

We’ll reach...

Well I’d like to say agreementf

But that’s too strong a word.

Yesterday more importantly we invented ‘The Crisper’ – a device using a spring mechanism to propel the crisp into the unsuspecting sandwich for obvious reasons.

Also we invented the ‘Over skirt’  A sort of plastic sheet or apron to be worn on wet days over usual day skirt.

The creativity – some days it is just overwhelming.

Restart

Haven’t written blog for eons, life is demanding, infuriating, irritating, and inspiring, peaceful.   We’re about to play for Warthogs Promotions – for their Wednesday concert.   Our rehearsals are wild and dynamic-I hope we can translate this onto the stage in a couple of days.   Outside is a riot of green growth too – the sound of bees pushes me to practice the song I’ve written through emails with a young beekeeper.   I’ve been getting up at 5am to start singing early so there’s time to meditate too and read and just be for a little bit each day.