I'm an English folk musician and it's perhaps surprising to many people, considering the prevalence of English and our modern music, that we as a country have lost a huge amount of our songs and music over the years. We have however re-entered a folk revival since the 70s and it has combined with the national pastime of peculiar hobbiests having documented a lot of really obscure things. But anyway, my partner sings…
Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?
21–30 of 49 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?
#22Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?
#23I'm an English folk musician and it's perhaps surprising to many people, considering the prevalence of English and our modern music, that we as a country have lost a huge amount of our songs and music over the years. We have however re-entered a folk revival since the 70s and it has combined with the national pastime of peculiar hobbiests having documented a lot of really obscure things. But anyway, my partner sings…
Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?
#24Zajdi zajdi - Tose Proeski
Vökuró - Björk
Native to somebody...
Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?
#25Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?
#26Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?
#27Muzinge - Samite of Uganda
Makambo - Geoffrey Oryema
Koloman - Sona Dibate
The Moon Over Mtatsminda - version on Jan Garbarek album
Like potato chips, hard to stop once you start...
Again, native for someone
Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?
#28Byssan lull: https://youtu.be/ogYC4LgqqnM A lullaby I think all Norwegian children have heard their beds, but it's actually Swedish
Til ungdommen: https://youtu.be/CieUTG8Z6Z0 The song became very beloved after 22.07.2011 and I think close to everyone here will get tears in their eyes when they hear it
Mitt hjerte alltid vanker: https://youtu.be/27JqZ8eEZlw Since it's Christmas soon. Very popular in Norway, although it's originally Danish
I guess it demonstrates the close historical relationship between the Nordic countries
Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?
#29Amhrán Mhúinse - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=By0QM8mlr28 (English lyrics are in the description) - This is probably my favorite of all Irish sean-nós songs. It's super haunting, and made even sadder by the fact the woman who wrote the song didn't get her wish to be buried in her home area.
Coilín Phádraig Shéamuis - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOjSOAxN9Wg -- Typical song about immigration, quite melancholic.
Also, Iarla Ó Lionard does quite a lot of good work in the sean-nós tradition (he was heard on the film Brooklyn); here's one of my favorites by him - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35U1sOOjdDg
FInally, it's hard not to mention Seosamh Ó hÉanaí/Joe Heaney/Joe Éinniú, a native speaker from the Galway Gaeltacht - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrSL3YtzP_w
And, for some newer works in the language that I enjoy
An Cailín Álainn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5l82gO7tuw
Pócaí Folamh is Cloigeann Tinn - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0L54BJFRnw
Siar go Conamara - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tywACdkAgc
All of these songs are sung by natives, which, sadly, is getting less and less common as the native speaking areas dwindle and as summer camps get millions of views translating the latest English language hit for summer school kids with awful pronunciation to sing.
Re: Ask HN: What is your best native song that is unknown due to language barrier?
#30I would go with “Dni których jeszcze nie znamy” by Marek Grechuta: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oG6pEolAKm8
It was used as a score for a recent Polish game "This War of Mine"