The Bard's Songs
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
than you can understand.
More than twenty years ago (well fuck me) I made a mixtape for our d&d campaign. That was when people used to burn audio CDs, and this was mixtape #39 (out of 271). I think I was playing an elf bard at the time.
I'm posting it here for posterity, for nostalgia, and as a snapshot of vanilla d&d lore/mood, as I experienced it back in the day. If it seems frightfully basic and predictable, well it was. Pretty much everything in that list is from Britain or Ireland or somehow evoking them. But hey, I ain't from there. It was exotic for me!
So it's vanilla and predictable, my little escapism soundtrack. And you know what else it is? A damn good compilation if I say so myself. "Fisherman's Blues" is one of best albums of all time, Loreena McKennitt is a genius, the Chieftains are giants, Pavlov's Dog are one of the few dad rock bands whose hits didn't age terribly, and hey, because I just listened to the whole thing again, when Enya stops singing "May it be" and the track continues with the Shire and the Fellowship leitmotifs, I am FULLY crying again, just bawling over here.
So here's to 2024, and the next 20 years of roleplaying, or as long as we got. Happy new year, everyone. Squeeze every drop out of life, and may your aim be true. The bard's songs will remain.
Tomorrow will take us away
Far from home
No one will ever know our names
But the bards' songs will remain
In my thoughts and in my dreams
They're always in my mind
These songs of hobbits, dwarves and men and elves
Come close your eyes
You can see them too
The Bard's Songs
The Waterboys - The Stolen Child [poem by W. B. Yeats, recited by Tomás Mac Eoin]
Van Morrison & The Chieftains - My Lagan love [trad. Irish]
Savina Yannatou - A fairy's love song [trad. Scottish, Hebrides]
The Waterboys - Dunford's fancy
The Waterboys - When will we be married? [trad.]
Van Morrison & The Chieftains - Carrickfergus [trad. Irish maybe]
Loreena McKennitt - All Souls Night
Loreena McKennitt - The highwayman [poem by Alfred Noyes]
Fairport Convention - Crazy man Michael
Fairport Convention - She moved through the fair [trad. Irish]
Marianne Faithfull - Scarborough Fair [trad. English]
Donovan - Guinevere (live)
Pavlov's Dog - Valkerie
Pavlov's Dog - Episode
Enya - May it be [LotR: The Fellowship of the Ring]
Blind Guardian - The Bard's song (In the forest)
Loreena McKennitt - The Stolen Child
This Compilation (P) 2003, Store of the Worlds, Inc. | No Rights Reserved
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love when men cry about body hair bc "it's hygiene" and yet 15% of cis men leave the bathroom without washing their hands at all and an additional 35% only just wet their hands without using soap. that is nearly half of all men. that means statistically you have probably shaken hands with or been in direct contact with one of these people.
love when men say that women "only want money" when it turns out that even in equal-earning homes, women are actually adding caregiver burdens and housework from previous years, whereas men have been expanding leisure time and hobbies. in equal-earning households, men spend an average of 3.5 hours extra in leisure time per week, which is 182 hours per year - a little over a week of paid vacation time that the other partner does not receive. kinda sounds like he wants her money.
love that men have decided women are frail and weak and annoying when we scream in surprise but it turns out it's actually women who are more reliable in an emergency because men need to be convinced to actually take action and respond to the threat. like, actually, for-real: men experience such a strong sense of pride about their pre-supposed abilities that it gets them and their families killed. they are so used to dismissing women that it literally kills them.
love it. told my father this and he said there's lies, damned lies, and statistics. a year ago i tried to get him to evacuate the house during a flash flood. he ignored me and got injured. he has told me, laughing, that he never washes his hands. he has said in the last week that women are just happier when we're cooking or cleaning.
maybe i'm overly nostalgic. but it didn't used to feel so fucking bleak. it used to feel like at least a little shameful to consider women to be sheep. it just feels like the earth is round and we are still having conversations about it being flat - except these conversations are about the most obvious forms of patriarchy. like, we know about this stuff. we've known since well before the 50's.
recently andrew tate tried to justify cheating on his partner as being the "male prerogative." i don't know what the prerogative for the rest of us would be. just sitting at home, watching the slow erosion of our humanity.
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@nighttimepatrons and I dared each other to draw something in Tolkien's watercolour style. She had the very good idea that I make it about the buddie Scorpio Races AU by @beecauseevan I have been exceedingly normal about. Don't think I succeeded in making it very tolkieny but I have drawn a sort of cover for the fic???
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