Celtic music is filled with songs which are as long or perhaps longer than the best Prog Rock anthems. Alright, so we have no equivalent to Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick, but we do have some pretty lengthy entries. I thought it was high time we showcased some of these amazing songs with an episode dedicated almost entirely to them.
For the purposes of this show, I've defined a song as a composition with lyrics, and I've also assigned a rather arbitrary length over which a song qualifies as "long." In this case, I decided to say that any song over five minutes in length should be included. However, many of them are over seven, eight, and even nine minutes long, and the piece de resistance, Loreena McKennitt's setting of "The Lady of Shallot," is eleven minutes and thirty-five seconds of pure gold! It's all very exciting really, and I hope you'll tune in and revel in the stories of murder, mayhem, lost love and magic that these songs tell.
We'll also have our regular features: a lovely Welsh song in "What's That About?", a set of World Music pieces in "Fiddlin' Around," and a live version by Mary Black of a Burt Bacherach and Hal David composition in "Celtic Covers."
So, if you're not into American Football or all those crazy Super Bowl commercials this Sunday, feel free to tune in for three hours of fantastic Celtic music on Come By The Hills! Listen again on the replay on Friday morning at 4:00 AM, 9:00 AM in the UK and Ireland!