Sunday Drive: The Water Is Wide

Pour vous, M.P., très cher ami--

By request, a traditional folk song performed by Orla Fallon of Celtic Woman:

 

N. B. -- The lyrics shown in the video are incorrect.  Here are the actual lyrics as sung by Orla (there are many versions):

The water is wide, I can't cross o'er

And neither have I wings to fly

Give me a boat that can carry two

And we shall sail, my love and I

Oh, love is gentle and love is kind

And love's a flower when first it's new

But love grows old and waxes cold

And fades away like morning dew

There is a ship, and she sails the sea

She's loaded deep as deep can be

But not as deep as the love I'm in

I know not how I sink or swim

The water is wide, I can't cross o'er

And neither have I wings to fly

Give me a boat that can carry two

And we shall sail, my love and I

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Sunday Drive: Early Morning Rain

I did not know till recently that this classic Peter, Paul and Mary tune was written by Gordon Lightfoot.

We had several gloomy, overcast days in a row this week, punctuated by downpours. But this morning it's bright and sunny outside, though just above freezing.

Bonus:  "The Amplitude of Love," a different kind of Christmas sermon, by the Rev. Sean Mullen at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.

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Sunday Drive: If I Had a Hammer

As performed by Peter, Paul and Mary at their 25th anniversary concert in 1986:

Sunday Drive: The Water Is Wide

To mark the bittersweet denouement of summer, here's an old lament exquisitely rendered by the late Eva Cassidy:

Sunday Drive: Red Is the Rose

A lovely Irish folk song, as performed by the contemporary group the High Kings:

Sunday Drive: We Shall Overcome

The anthem of the Civil Rights Movement has carried the hopes of millions from the streets of Selma to the White House, and beyond.

1. As performed by the SNCC Freedom Singers for an anthology of civil rights songs, 1988:




2. As performed by Joan Baez (who sang the song at the 1963 March on Washington, and participated in the third Selma-Montgomery March in 1965) in concert in the East Room of the White House in 2010:

Sunday Drive: Ashokan Farewell

July 3rd was the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, the high-water mark of the Confederacy and the great turning point in our national history. All that came before flowed into that moment, and all that has happened in these United States since has flowed from it. Jay Ungar composed the haunting and lovely "Ashokan Farewell," which Ken Burns put to such memorable use in his masterpiece of filmmaking, The Civil War - a documentary every American should see at least once.

Why?  Because, as Faulkner said, "The past is not dead.  It's not even past."