Thank You For Your Patience

To be honest with you, it’s been a little daunting to return to this project after such a long absence. In addition to the time away, I’ve been rethinking my approach to the project in a way that’s forced me to change the way I work on it. Rather than tackling it a page at a time, I’m now trying to plot an entire chapter all at once.

Well, it’s been a long time (I’ve actually avoided checking exactly how long since I last posted a new image), but I’m hoping to finally get the first new page up today. But in the meantime, I’ve been gearing myself up by collecting an assortment of Wake-related music. So if you were looking for help putting together the nerdiest mixtape of all time, then your prayers are answered!

1. The Ballad of Persse O’Reilly

I looked everywhere for a version of the Ballad of Persse O’Reilly with full musical accompaniment, but in the end I think your best bet is this version sung by Ronnie Drew of the Dubliners:

2. Nuvoletta

This is a song by Samuel Barber adapted from the Mookse and the Gripes:



More Wake-related tunes after the jump...

3. Finnegan’s Wake

You can’t really have a list like this that doesn’t include the original Vaudeville song, “Finnegan’s Wake.” The Dubliners also have a more traditional version of this, but for variety, here’s a punk interpretation by the Dropkick Murphys:

4. The Sickbed of Cuchulainn

I don’t have any real textual support to assert the relationship between this song by the Pogues and Finnegans Wake, but I feel pretty confident about it. And it’s a great song, so there you are.

5. Finnegans Wake by Tangerine Dream

The German electronic group Tangerine Dream put out an album inspired by Finnegans Wake in 2011. It’s not really my sort of thing, but if you were wondering what Finnegans Wake would sound like if it sounded like the soundtrack to Blade Runner, then now you know.

6. Roaratorio

Finally, here is an entire one-hour performance of John Cage’s Roaratorio, “an Irish Circus on Finnegans Wake” by John Cage. I haven’t watched the whole thing yet, but it seems to derive from the “several records playing at once” school of modern classical composition. I’d love to hear from anyone who’s seen it performed.



Does anyone have anymore?

ADDENDUM:

7. The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs

Courtesy of @pancog, here’s another one from John Cage, a song “for voice and closed piano,” based on a passage from chapter iii.4.