Continuing the “When is a work actually 2 works?” theme:
Some artists are treating Tabhair dom do Lámh (Give Me Your Hand) as the same work as “White, Orange and Green” / “White, Green and Orange”. WP and The Session are doing this as well.
edit: On closer reading WP are not doing this explicitly - rather they list two examples of medleys changing from one song to the other.
Is this sufficient to justify linking all such named recordings by Celtic performers to the same catch-all (bearing in mind the very low likelihood of Celtic performers playing silly-buggers with the names of traditional tunes)?.
Wikipedia lists “White, Orange & Green” two times, both given as part of a set that also includes “Tabhair dom do Lámh” («White, Orange & Green, followed by Tabhair dom do Lámh» and «White, Orange & Green & Tabhair dom do Lámh»). The Session lists “White, Green, And Orange” and “White, Orange, And Green” as aliases for the work and the discussion related to it also only suggests that it’s a song sung in a set with Tabhair dom do lámh, though maybe it uses the same melody?
Either way, I would not consider the two the same work. Tabhair dom do lámh is an instrumental piece originally written for harp. If someone(s) added words to it later, that work with lyrics should be its own work, not combined with the instrumental original. Tabhair dom do lámh is at least from 1603, and the notion of “white, orange, and green” for the Irish is from the 19th century, a couple hundred years after the composition of the tune.
Looking up “White, Orange, and Green” on mudcat.org, I found this thread: http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=5701
Which says that “WO&G” is indeed words set to the tune of Tabhair dom do lámh, so I maintain that they should be two separate Works, although they should be linked.
The next group of related recordings may well be treated in the same manner…
Give Me Your Hand (which is the common English translation of “Tabhair dom do lámh”) is performed both as an instrumental and with English lyrics by the Wolftones.
Instrumental recordings will go into “Tabhair dom do lámh catch-all” and lyrics version as separate (but linked) work.
I’ll see your mudcat and raise you another.
"As to the tune it is not “Give me your Hand” which is, as Alison points out, “a lovely slow air”.
It is in fact the old English tune “Villikins and his Dinah” used over the years to a large number of songs." http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=5701
Does “Villikins and his Dinah” predate the 1603 dating of Ruairi Dall O’Cathain’s composition “Tabhair dom do Lámh”? If so, “Tabhair dom do Lámh” may well have been inspired from that. More likely though is it that “Tabhair dom do Lámh” ‘migrated’ East and got transformed and/or renamed to “Villikins and his Dinah”.
I’m confident that Tabhair predates Villikins.
But a Google search brings up 7 results which have both Tabhair and Villikins.
And none seem to be claiming a developmental relationship between Tabhair and Villikins.
@mmirG asked for my opinion… The tune, “Tabhair dom do Lámh,” is one work; it is an instrumental, a/k/a its English translation, “Give Me Your Hand.” It has distinct A and B parts. There is a second work, “Give Me Your Hand,” with the melody of the tune, but very modern lyrics about peace in Ireland; it uses the A and B parts of the melody. There is another song, about the 1916 rising, “White, Orange and Green” (or permutations thereof), which has a similar melody to “Tabhair dom do Lámh,” but not quite the same, and only using the A part. IMO, the differences are significant enough to warrant three discrete works, and I’m not entirely sure that “W.O.&G.” should be said to use the “T.d.d.L.” melody.
Can we get this fly out of the ointment? Is it really a fly?
I like the way things are shaping up around the works.
The fly(?) in the ointment is the recordings that appear to treat “White, Orange and Green” as a version of Tabhair dom do Lámh.
They use track titles like “White, Orange & Green (Tabhair Dom Do Lahm)”.
For examples see the lower section of recordings listed at Tabhair …
That some of these may not be using this form { “White, Orange & Green (Tabhair Dom Do Lahm)”} to indicate a medley is suggested by the CA here
In that CA I’m doubting that “Feilims’ Little Boat Phelims (Baidin Fheidhlimi)” denotes a medley of Feilims’ Little Boat Phelims / Baidin Fheidhlimi.
What to do when an artist is treating Tabhair dom do Lámh (Give Me Your Hand) as the same work as “White, Orange and Green” or “White, Green and Orange”?
The easy solution would be for me to just ignore such artist’s understandings, rename and mark them as medlies and leave such issues for future editors to figure out.
(edit: Markdown smarkdown)
I haven’t heard either song or tune (to my knowledge), so I wouldn’t be able to tell. But chances are that the song is “based on” Tabhair dom do Lámh, even if the melody line may not match 1:1 (the “Trad. Factor”) and even if it’s only using 1st half of it.
High level question: In the absence of common knowledge, recognised experts and informed listening to the recording, how do we tell if a tune is “the same work”?
Current plan:
Make separate works for Tabhair instrumental, Tabhair with wolftone lyrics and WOG/WGO.
Make “based on” relationship between WGO - Tabhair (instrumental) and also Tabhair(lyrics) - Tabhair (instrumental). And annotations aknowledging the presence of naysayers to WGO - Tabhair (instrumental) relationship.
(S. Chadwick has written on the historical changes of Tabhair (instrumental) versions and is specific about which version he is performing - as/if further artists get explicit about which Tabhair (instrumental) version they are performing then further versions of the work can be added. There seems to be some tension between Trad. and “historic research biased” performers.)
—@Freso
