All language subtitles for Tommy Sands - Clann an Cheoil 25.eng

♪ It's a brand new day. ♪

♪ Little children
hiding in the shadows

♪ Waiting for the
changing of the day

♪ Watching for a break
between the showers

♪ When they can come
out and start to play. ♪

I first heard of Tommy Sands
through Pete Seeger.

Pete like my dad,
spoke up for the regular guy

and Tommy had written songs that
spoke up for northern Ireland.

It's the storey of standing
up for the regular guy.

He's one of those guys.

♪ Is there anyone else

♪ Up there?

My first memory of the power
of music was listening to my mother

trying to put me to sleep with
the power of music, a lullaby.

She used to sing

♪ daily daily sing to Mary
da-da-da-da, da-da-da ♪

She's a pretty beautiful singer.

♪ As I went a-walking
one morning in spring

♪ for to hear the birds whistle
and the nightingale sing. ♪

Small farm was
busy most of the time,

especially harvest time,
cutting out hay, corn.

Gathering that up. Threshing now
was always a very big event.

Normally about seven
or eight local farmers

who arrived in with the thresher.

I remember music at night.

One or two of the neighbours in
and local farmers and maybe

a bottle or two of stout consumed
before the end of the evening.

But anyhow very happy, good times.

We grew up listening to
fiddle players, storytellers

and thinking that every
house was the same.

We learned a lot from
those experiences.

You know, people who were
good fun, good storytellers,

good singers, good musicians.

We always got this feeling that
they were worth spending time with.

That image I remember of the
céilí house, the session house,

making people feel at home
with kindness, something to eat,

something to drink.

And sharing of songs and stories
is universal and timeless.

My very earliest memory was
watching toes tapping table

the same rhythm, regardless
of the political persuasion

or religious affiliation.

And I think that probably affected
me more than anything else.

How music can connect people,
creating relationships that may

not be there so
easily without that.

We were able to see the
importance of relationships

and neighbourliness and consensus.

In our house growing up, we'd all
sorts of Catholics, Protestants,

however the neighbours were.

They were all the same.

The end of the season you'd gather
spuds together, you'd do, you know,

you do things help each
other out basically.

And you'd be sitting around
in a circle in the evening

be a few bottles.

Some of the neighbours,
they would go there in the full

intention to sing and the
others would go for the craic

and the fun of it.

♪ If you should go across the water,

♪ take me with you
to be your partner. ♪

♪ Up the ladder and down the wall,
the ha'penny loaf will do us all

♪ A bit for you and a bit for me
and a bit for all the family. ♪

I suppose when you're growing up,
you look towards the future

and you try to be what you
think is the best thing you can be.

Had an uncle, a priest
in the Philippines

and he's a lovely man and
had an uncle in Africa as well.

He's in Nigeria.

They were very interesting people.

I had a wide view of the world.

I thought of I want to do
something like that.

I like the idea of being a priest.

♪ We're all off the Carlow
in the black, in the black

♪ to a life that's free from sin,

♪ where no birds nor
booze nor living loose

♪ can ever enter in. ♪

There's an expectation that some
of us might go that direction

and I went off first to Blacklion
and then the following year, Tom.

Tommy went to Carlow.

Ben went to Galway
with the SMA.

I was starting to think
this is not really for me,

but there's also a
time where you think,

what happens
if I don't continue?

How are people at
home going to think?

And for me it was a very
difficult decision to make.

Ben, he was last to go
into college and first to leave.

Tom left after that,
I left the following year.

He walked home from
Carlow to Rostrevor.

He told me as I was walking,
I knew by the time I get home,

I knew what I was going to
do with the rest of my life.

And that was how he started
his life as a musician.

Just as I arrived in Newry,
there was a squeal of brakes.

Colum and Ben and
Anne and Dean went.

And I think it was Colum who
said, your guitar's in the back.

We're going to do a gig
in Gormanstown because

the refugees were there.
Do you want to come?

I said, yes.

I think it was just that sense
of to do what you feel at that time

is the best thing you can do.

And that was the yes which
led me in all directions.

♪ There was a farmer
in the west with me...

♪ He had a wife who wasn't the best
and they called her Immoral Maggio. ♪

We were going to record that
demo and we just had this

wee battery tape recorder,
which was useless, you know,

the batteries in those days.

So we borrowed an electric one

and of course we didn't
have electricity.

The only man nearby with
electricity was Neville Brennan's.

So we went across to ask him,

do you think we could
borrow some of your power?

He says, well, you can only do it
while the cows are being milked.

That's the only time
the generator's on

and you'll have
to do it in the byre.

That's the only plug you can use.

But no sooner did we
start singing (MOOS)

on the background of every song and
we had no way of editing that out.

We had been waiting for
months for the go ahead

to do this engagement in New York.

I think it was for three weeks
in two big pubs in New York.

Played each one of them each night.

It was just another world.

It was like something
on the films like, you know.

The man who was managing us was
also managing Tommy Makem,

Mike Broadbine.

He was promoting at an Irish
concert around St. Patrick's Day.

And he told us when we arrived,
you'll be playing in Carnegie Hall.

I didn't really take it in,
like how big a deal that was.

I had heard of Carnegie hall,
but I didn't know it was like

the thing you aimed to do.

When we left home,
my mother said,

stay together now
and you don't separate.

And cab would only
take four at the most.

But there was five of us
and a double base,

so we couldn't get
two different ones.

But we were told not to
do that and that was it.

So we walked, as you do.

We didn't know how
to get to Carnegie Hall.

We had an idea and
we're asking the question,

how do you get to Carnegie
Hall? And all this,

these people had been waiting
to be asked a question like that.

You know, get a good agent
and all the smart answers

you could imagine.
But it was fantastic.

My fiddle, the strings on it
were probably 30 years old,

but I was tuning it up
and the G string broke.

And I didn't have spare
strings or anything like that.

I'm not proud to say it,
but I may be one of the few

fiddle players who ever
went onto that stage

with three strings on the fiddle.

But the experience was amazing.

I'd been to Dublin once
before, but America was

going very far away, you know.

I could even remember
the smells that, you know.

All the colours,
everything, you know.

And Vietnam,
the war was on at the time

and you'd meet up with lots
of Federals coming back.

Some of them were
in very bad shape.

Some of them were
mentally, you know,

another place
altogether, you know.

But it was in a very,
very interesting time as well,

because made you realise the
world was getting more and more

uneasy and the war was happening.

And then you seen
the injustice of it all.

MAN: This demonstration
must be non-violent

despite any provocation.

We were very much involved
in the civil rights movement.

But then when peaceful protest is
ignored, sometimes violent

protest becomes inevitable.

Then when that began on Bloody
Sunday, it knocks logic aside.

At that stage I decided I wasn't
going to sing any songs

to a Catholic audience
that I couldn't sing

to a protestant audience.

Because when violence
becomes the norm,

the most rebellious song you
can sing is sung with peace.

♪ Pictures of the children
hanging in the classroom wall

♪ Frankie Brown's in front of them,
a flower among them all

♪ Working for the future
with all his heart and soul

♪ who's the one to tell him
he be signing on the door. ♪

On the road you'd
meet up with Clannad,

you'd meet up on the autobahn and
a wee chat, where are you tonight?

Oh, I saw your poster,
we're there next week or whatever,

you know, it's great, great, yeah.

But sometimes you didn't
feel like singing.

You know, if you've been
sitting in the back six hours

and you're hungry and then you had
to go on smiling like, you know,

here we are the
whole way from Ireland,

you're half delirious from the
road, it does that to you.

Those autobahns were the bread and
butter for so many Irish groups

for years.

And then East Germany.

♪ I think your nuclear rockets are
dangerous for the health... ♪

People at home were saying
that's communism over there.

Dangerous crowd.

So that anti leftivism had
leaked across the Atlantic

and three mile down the Orion road.

So in our kitchen, not only
the orange green thing

was being debated in song,
but the east/west left/right

thing was being debated as well.

♪ So would somebody tell me
and give my mind peace

♪ (SINGS IN GERMAN)

When we went to Germany, people
wanted to hear what we had written.

And that I think gave us a lot of
belief in the importance of just

being ourselves and writing our own
songs and putting our own thoughts,

thoughts and experiences across.

That was a very
important time in our lives.

I remember 1975 being
a really busy year.

We were in Germany and Canada
and Denmark and Austria

and it was getting to that point
where it was all a bit of a blur.

You know, you'd walk
out onto a stage

and the gig was the little break in
the middle of all the travelling.

Deano was gone down to Osnabrueck.

He's going with his girlfriend,
a girl called Susie.

And it was the next morning,
there's a man called Horst Tubing.

He says something terrible
happened to your family last night

and you're not really taking it in.

He's talking about
a burst tyre, a lorry.

I can't even remember what
exactly he was saying.

And Dean was dead.

It was a terrible, terrible time.

An absolutely brilliant
instrumentalist.

Could have played nearly any
stringed instrument and did.

Was a big part of that band.
Big part of the group.

Yeah.

Outgoing lad enjoyed himself but
again it was very, very difficult

when he died. Couldn't believe it.

Couldn't believe it. Yeah.

Yeah. It was a tough time.

It was a tough time. Yeah.

I was actually at home at the time,
I wasn't in Germany.

And a cousin came down to
Lurgan to tell me.

It's just a total bolt
from the blue, you know.

They were doing very
well in Germany at that time

and they were in the middle
of a maybe three week tour

and I just could not believe it.

Couldn't believe it.

I remember coming home and going
down to the room to my mother

and the whole bed
shook with her crying.

It was terrible.

Do you ever get over
something like that?

But we were sort of thinking
we had Eugene to bring home

and that was going to be
very hard, you know.

And that long wait.

I think it was maybe three or
four days before he got home.

But again then when you got home
that wake went on maybe

for seven days.

All the neighbours that you would
have worked in the fields with or

that helped you out,
they were just sort of,

they were all there.

But the next morning we
went out for the funeral

and I didn't want to lift my head.

And then Fergal McAuliffe
started playing Donal Og

on bagpipes.

A slow sad piece.

But suddenly I was able
to hold my head up and

eventually wrote a song
which helped me.

You'll never grow old,
but you'll always be growing

in our hearts, in our minds,
in the home you left behind.

You'll never know pain,
nor the anguish of ageing.

You'll always be young, beautiful.

We thought about stopping music
altogether then, you know,

we talked about it among ourselves
and reckoned that Deano

certainly wouldn't have wanted
to be the cause of us stopping.

And there was tours lined up
a couple of years in advance.

I said I'd step into the preach.

♪ In your daughters and your sons.

♪ You saw the seeds of freedom
in your daughters and your sons. ♪

(ACOUSTIC TRAD PICKING)

Going back on stage
was definitely difficult.

You could feel that he was still
there, but you couldn't see him.

But I'm really glad that
we did keep on going

and in many ways carry
his memory with us.

Tommy arrived at a point in time
where he himself was constructed or

formulated through his rural
upbringing and that country wisdom,

that knowingness of what
it is to be a good person.

And that coincided the
whole folk boom movement.

So he's being influenced
by Bob Dylan,

John Baez and that
whole folk movement and that radical

perspective of songwriting.

♪ This land is your land
and this land is my land

♪ From California to the
New York island... ♪

WOMAN: Straight from
Ireland to the Guthrie Centre,

Tommy Sands.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

(ACOUSTIC GUITAR PICKING)

♪ My song for you this evening

♪ It's not to make you sad,
not for adding to the sorrows

♪ of this troubled northern land.

♪ But lately I've been thinking
it just won't leave my mind

♪ to tell you of two friends one time
they were both good friends of mine ♪

♪ Allan Bell from Banagh

♪ He lived just across the fields

♪ Great man for the music
and the dancing and the reels. ♪

If you're lucky enough to be
a singer or musician,

you're given that power

to reach someone in a different
way than the usual ways.

It's a great gift in that sense,
to go and share songs

that mean something to you.

You might call them your own
songs if you've written them.

But they're the result of all the
people you've met along the way.

And all ideas and thoughts
you have absorbed.

♪ ..And the tears of the
people ran together. ♪

♪ There were roses,

♪ Roses

♪ There were roses

♪ and the tears of the
people ran together. ♪

♪ I'm still searching

♪ Yes, I'm still searching for a way

♪ we all can learn...♪

Well, Pete, that song that you
wrote, I'm still Searching.

It's a beautiful song and I suppose
it sums up your own feelings.

You're always listening
and learning and searching.

Well, I'm convinced that if there's
a world here in a hundred years,

the arts will be one of the
main things that save us all.

All us artists are filled
with a blessed unrest.

Trying to reach the infinite
and never making it,

but never giving up trying.

It's you bringing the
leaders of Ireland together

by singing together.

It's little things here
and little things there.

Pete, hopefully we'll be back in
America to see you before too long.

Give my best to your
wife and family.

I surely will, Pete. Bye.
All the very best. Bye-bye.

♪ This land is your land
this land is my land

♪ From California
to the New York Island

♪ From the Redwood Forest
Little Gulf Stream waters

♪ this land was made
for you and me. ♪

There's a few verses
in that which

didn't get into school
books and so on.

Well, my dad wrote
six verses to that song,

three of which he published
and three of which he didn't.

What are those verses?
Do you remember them?

♪ I went walking
and saw a sign there

♪ and on the sign it
said no trespassing

♪ but on the other side
it didn't say nothing

♪ that side was made for you and me

♪ in the shadows of the steeple
I saw my people

♪ in the welfare office
I saw my people

♪ as they stood hungry
I stood there asking

♪ Is this land made for you and me?

♪ Nobody living can never stop me

♪ As I go walking my freedom highway

♪ Nobody living can
make me turn back

♪ this land was made
for you and me. ♪

Beautiful, beautiful.

Originally he was called
the Dust Bowl Balladeer.

He was concerned that nobody
was singing about hardship

that people had to endure.

I think my dad realised
at some point that his voice

became the voice of others.

And so, in a sense,
he spoke for other people

who didn't have an outlet,
who didn't have a way

of reaching the audience
that he was able to reach.

Pete Seeger was very
much influenced by Woody.

I think they were attracted to each
other, by their commitment

to things beyond themselves.

A better world, one where
there's a little more equality,

a little more justice, less greed.

They liked these ideas and
I think they realised at some point

that together we're
going to reach a lot of people.

(SINGING IN IRISH)

Well, Arty, I'm certainly looking
forward to having listened

to yourself on the guitar
with Nollaig Casey.

And Nollaig's waiting inside
in studio one there.

So after this we'll be having
Arty McGlynn and Nollaig Casey.

(JINGLE PLAYS)
♪ Downtown Radio. ♪

Later in the programme we'll be
having a chat to Sir Reg Empey

to John Hume, Gerry Adams,
Bairbre de Brún and David...

I remember one Christmas, I decided
I would do a programme with all the

religious and political leaders.

So I interviewed them all.

Went down with a tape
recorder full of stuff down to

the Archbishop to-be,
Cardinal Ó Fiaich,

and he says, what sort
of a man is Paisley?

I realised at that moment these
people didn't know each other.

I said, he told jokes,

well, if he told jokes
he can't be too bad.

♪ September the 11th in 1973... ♪

I was born in Stanford on the bay

it seems so long now so far away.

There were pretty flowers all around

they grew up but I grew down.

Will you hear me?

Will you hear me?

I sold my body to buy my food

I was beaten, bullied and abused.

Will you help me turn the page?

I'm a girl of 17 years of age.

Will you hear me?

Will you hear me?

(CROWD SING TOGETHER)

The Good Friday
thing that Tommy did.

I was at Stormont and there
was a lot of haggling going on.

There was loyalists
haggling Paisley.

It was all sorts of things
and a lot of people weren't happy.

But Tommy arrived with the children
and that sent a very special

message to say,
this is our future, our children.

And I don't think people,
an awful lot of people,

really realised the significance
of all that until maybe later on

when they thought about it.
But it was genius what he did.

The idea of bringing music into it.

Music's not an argument.

It's a different force,
it's a different power.

And it disarms people,
maybe is one way of putting it,

or it helps them to
see things in another way.

Whether it's protecting communities,
the environment, building a future.

We're always thinking of children.

The children didn't have
time to learn a chorus

and I needed it to be very short.

I thought maybe I might get
a few seconds on the news.

And we wanted to say everything
that needed to be said.

And the chorus went,
♪ Carry on, carry on.

♪ You can hear the people singing

♪ Carry on, carry on

♪ Till peace will come again. ♪

The first man to start
singing was Gusty Spence,

Gerry Adams and all those people.

And it was great to see their
lips moving through the chorus.

When we left that day, Stormont,

we realised that peace was just like

a little child that'll slip
and stumble many times

before it learns to walk
but there are enough

helping hands to make sure
that one day it would dance.

♪ Is there anyone else up there?

♪ Is there anyone else up there to
say there might be another way?

♪ Is there anyone
else up there to say

♪ don't kill the
children in your wake?

♪ Is there anyone
else up there above

♪ to speak of justice,
truth and love?

♪ Is there anyone else

♪ Up there? ♪

Do you want to come in, have
a listen to that one? Okay.

I sort of changed it around
a wee bit there, but okay.

Sounding very good.
And then as if you've

been looking around at
what's going on at this minute

and built it around
an earlier idea.

Is that what's happening there?

As the old people used to say,

if God tells you to kill innocent
people, get a second opinion.

Because it mightn't be God at all.

And leaders quoting
books and scriptures

and at the same time
finding justification

for killing innocent people.

That comes into the song.

Don't do to another that you
don't want done to you.

Are you happy enough for that take
or do you want to try another one?

♪ You're welcome back again

♪ Won't you stay a while?

♪ Down by the Lagan side

♪ and when we dance

♪ we'll dance together

♪ when we cry
we'll hold each other

♪ and when we love
we'll love forever

♪ down by the Lagan side... ♪

Wouldn't be too many groups that
had been coming from a small

rural place that had
playing in Carnegie Hall

and in Moscow and all
over the place, like.

Always very proud of them. Yeah.

♪ He said, who owns the
teardrops falling in the rain? ♪

I feel very lucky to
have played music

and have played
so much with my family.

We met so many amazing people.

You hope that the songs
and the stories and the tunes

have helped people and
made the world a

slightly better place for them.

♪ Home away from home... ♪

Singing is another way
of getting across to people.

You're sending something
else out there to them.

When they do sing, it brings me to
another place, another wee world,

to a place where I want to be.

You know, there's something
peaceful about a lot of the songs.

Life and the music,

I see it all as a
big learning curve.

And if you happen to help some
other people along the way,

that's a mighty bonus.

♪ I remember 42nd Street
I couldn't find a place to sleep

♪ Looking for a bite to eat
to keep me from the cold

♪ Saw a lonely laughing man
beside a burning rubbish can

♪ Waving whisky in his hand
Saying welcome to my home

♪ Home away from home

♪ Home away from home... ♪