Weep Or Laugh Your Heart Out

 

By Mark Howell

 

It took the United States Coast Guard Band under the delightful direction of Lieutenant Commander Adam R. Williamson to initiate Howelings into the “back story” of two of our most favorite works of art.

 

 

The Coast Guard wind orchestra, founded in 1926 with the involvement of none other than John Philip Sousa, has ever since reigned one of the finest bands in the land.

 

 

This month it performed a magnificent concert of music from the British Isles in Leamy Hall at the Coast Guard Academy in Groton, Connecticut, where our son-in-law serves as a police officer.

 

 

Who knew what that immortal Welsh folk song called “Bugeillio’r Gwenith Gwyn” (known in English as “Watching the Wheat”) is actually all about?

 

 

 

Not this Welshman.

 

 

As performed by Coast Guard Musician First Class, the soprano Megan Weikleenget (in Welsh no less, as in “Dwed imir’r hep gel aAhro dan seld’atebion) this heart-breaking song so familiar in Welsh pubs has acquired new meaning for us.

 

 

According to to the concert’s program notes, it’s actually all about the tragic and quite likely real love affair between Wil Hopcyn and Ann Thomas.

 

 

Ann, it seems, belonged to a wealthy farming family but Wil was only a farm laborer. Ann’s mother rejected Wil and forced Ann into a marriage with Anthony Maddocks, the son of a local squire. A few days before the marriage took place, Wil left Llangynwyd. Months later Wil had a dream in which Ann’s new husband had died, so he returned home. When he arrived, however, he discovered that in fact it was Ann who was dying, from a broken heart. Ann died in his arms that day.

 

 

Another story song with an astonishing origin was the concert’s closing piece by A. J. Potter called “Finnegan’s Wake,” a title familiar to readers of James Joyce’s famously incomprehensible final novel. The title and the song are apparently derived from an Irish and quite likely real character named Tim Finnegan. Thanks to the program notes yet again, we learn that this fellow from Dublin was an intemperate character whose habits led to his becoming involved in an industrial accident (he fell off a ladder) and with his injuries “seeming to have proved fatal,” he was conveyed to his residence to be laid out for the wake. “This sad occasion drew a large attendance from the neighborhood and the career of the deceased was discussed with an intensity that led, alas, to acrimony. A brawl ensued, in the course of which various missiles were jactated, including a noggin of whiskey. This latter missed its intended target and, striking the wall immediately above the deceased’s head, precipitated its contents over him. Having been thus anointed with the precious spirit, the corpse arose Lazarus-like and aproceeded to address the assembled company in forceful language.”

 

 

Altogether an afternoon of sensational performances made all the more anazing by those program notes assembled thanks to Coast Guard Musician No.1 Joel Broody and Musician UC Bonnie Denton.

A triumph by all.

 

 

Quote for the Week for Dog Lovers:

You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard

To think of you ever dying.

A little dog would get tired, living so long.

I hope that when you are lying

Under the ground like me your lives will appear

As good and cheerful as mine.

But that’s too much to hope;

You are not so well for as I have been.

Your minds are perhaps too active,

Too many sided, but to me you were true.

I was your friend. I loved you well

And was loved. Deep love endures

To the end and far past the end.

If this is my end, I am not lonely,

I am not afraid. I am still yours.

—Robinson Jeffers

[livemarket market_name="KONK Life LiveMarket" limit=3 category=“” show_signup=0 show_more=0]