Danny Boy (Londonderry Air)

National Anthem: Northern Ireland - Danny Boy (Londonderry Air) - Constituent Country of the UK

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8srE4j2zJrU

 

Ian Berwick

70K subscribers

 

The Londonderry Air is an air that originated from County Londonderry in Ireland (now in Northern Ireland). It is popular among the Irish diaspora and is very well known throughout the world. The tune is played as the victory anthem of Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games. The song "Danny Boy" uses the tune, with a set of lyrics written in the early 20th century.
nitially written to a tune other than "Londonderry Air", the words to "Danny Boy" were penned by English lawyer and lyricist Frederic Weatherly in Bath, Somerset in 1910. After his Irish-born sister-in-law Margaret (known as Jess) in the United States sent him a copy of "Londonderry Air" in 1913 (an alternative version has her singing the air to him in 1912 with different lyrics), Weatherly modified the lyrics of "Danny Boy" to fit the rhyme and meter of "Londonderry Air".

Weatherly gave the song to the vocalist Elsie Griffin, who made it one of the most popular songs in the new century; and, in 1915, Ernestine Schumann-Heink produced the first recording of "Danny Boy".

Jane Ross of Limavady is credited with collecting the melody of "Londonderry Air" in the mid-19th century from a musician she encountered.

"Danny Boy" is also considered to be an unofficial signature song and anthem, particularly by Irish Americans and Irish Canadians

 

Would God I were the tender apple blossom (The Londonderry Air)-

John McCormack: with Lyrics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xim1JFqfBzk

 

 

Would God I were the tender apple blossom
That floats and falls from off the twisted bough
To lie and faint within your silken bosom
Within your silken bosom as that does now.
Or would I were a little burnish'd apple
For you to pluck me, gliding by so cold
While sun and shade you robe of lawn will dapple
Your robe of lawn, and you hair's spun gold.
Yea, would to God I were among the roses
That lean to kiss you as you float between
While on the lowest branch a bud uncloses
A bud uncloses, to touch you, queen.
Nay, since you will not love, would I were growing
A happy daisy, in the garden path
That so your silver foot might press me going
Might press me going even unto death.

 

Would God I Were the Tender Apple Blossom (Londonderry Air) -

John McCormack 1923

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTvR8YFfSRc

 

Irish Mike

666 subscribers

 

Written by Kathryn-Tynan Hinkson, "Would God I Were the Tender Apple Blossom" was arranged to the tune of "The Londonderry Air" and recorded by John McCormack on September 26, 1923. Surprisingly, the staple of all Irish tenors, "Danny Boy" also written to the tune of "The Londonderry Air", was not recorded or performed in public by John McCormack. He simply did not like the song and I'm sure much to the chagrin of its composers