Sail Away Ladies

Music soothes the savage breast.  Among the horrors and mundaneness of our lives one composition can bring comfort or hope that things will not always be like this. The hope may be fond, the thinking wishful, but as you listen you enjoy the comfort of the music and the fact that you do or might have hope where there is none.

I remember the days when I listened to sail away ladies, played by John Fahey.

Composers have to name their music because there is so much of it around and because naming a composition without words gives the composer an ability to add another dimension to the words. Fahey did not write the original “Sail Away Ladies”. It is a traditional song but he rewrote it, taking its best melodies and adding to them until he created something new.

Fahey took music and added to it to make it new and different. I like to add words to music which is missing them, to make a song out of a tune, something to sing in your head as you listen to the music or, even better, something to sing in your head when you cannot hear the music, walking through a rainy town.

The days have sailed away, ladies

The days have sailed far away

Sail away you black eyed dancers

Sail away you blue eyed blonds