The Irish Rovers   •   Emigrate! Emigrate! (CAN)

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  • Emigrate! Emigrate!
    • 1973 - Potato POT 3203 LP (CAN)
  • Side One
    1. The Passing of the Gale
    2. Yellow Gals
    3. Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore
    4. Farewell to Carlingford (Tommy Makem)
    5. Mary of Dungloe
    6. Emigration Medley
  • Side Two
    1. Cobblers (W. McDowell, W. Millar & D. Murphy)
    2. Paddy on the Railway
    3. Canadian Railroad Trilogy (Gordon Lightfoot)
    4. Northern Rake (George & Will Millar)
    5. Children of Hate (Will Millar)
    6. Catch Another Butterfly (M. Williams)
    7. Gypsy
    8. 60 Seconds To Get Out:
      1. When Irish Eyes Are Smiling (Olcott, Ball, Graff)
      2. Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral (That's An Irish Lullaby) (R. Shannon)

  • The Irish Rovers
    • Will Millar: Vocals, Bodhran, Whistle, Tenor Banjo, Mandolin
    • George Millar: Vocals, Acoustic Guitars
    • Joe Millar: Vocals, Bodhran, Button Key Accordion, Harmonica, Spoons
    • Wilcil McDowell: Accordion, Cordovox
    • Jimmy Ferguson: Vocals
  • Musicians
    • Chuck Aarons: Electric Guitar
    • Jim Ackley: Piano (Track: 12)
    • Richard Armin: Cello, Concertmaster
    • David Essig: Lead Acoustic Guitar (Track: 9)
    • Larry Good: 5-String Banjo (Tracks: 2 & 9)
    • Bob Lucier: Pedal Steel Guitar (Track: 10)
    • Duris Maxwell: Drums
    • Kathy Moses: Flute (Tracks: 3 & 5)
    • Jerry Sheff: Bass
    • Bill Usher: Percussion (Track: 13)
    • George Wilson: Fiddle
  • Credits
    • Produced by Dennis R. Murphy for Sundog Productions
    • Recorded at Can-Base Studios (Vancouver) with Keith Stein & Thunder Sound (Toronto) with Bill Seddon
    • Mixed at Thunder Sound by Bill Seddon & Dennis Murphy
    • Front & Back Cover Photos by Bob Silk
    • Design: Will Millar & Mike Tott
    • Strings Arranged & Conducted by Jim Ackley
    • ©© 1973 Potato Records — Made in Canada

Sleeve Notes

The written thoughts go on and on …
"Ah go my children, go away, obey the inspiration,
Go with thy mantling hopes of health and youthful expectations
Go clear the forests, climb the hills, and lay the Railroad lines
Come let us seek a living place and leave the land that's Dying."

Such a movement of people was never known before. There was work and hope and freedom in Canada or America and Australia. So the poets and the ballad makers echoed the emotions of the "Gaels" on the move. We tried to capture the energy of all these feelings on this album of "Emigration".

The music moves through the laments of leaving home forever, the life on the ocean passage. Here also is the hopes and fears of the new home for the emigrants in the new world.
Finally, what has happened to the old land and the travelling people since the tall "clipper" and "packet" ships carried them off to a million adventures.


It was the old songs I suppose
That kindled the flame
For among years of exile
The memories remained
Of old walks by rivers
That danced in the sun
Of a thrush in the orchard
And the smell of the hay
Or the crows building nests
In the daffodil days.

The dark glassy water
Silent and still
Where the trout breaks the surface
Near the old linen mill.

And I carried those scenes
In a boxful of tunes
To be poured through a fiddle
Or in tin whistle rooms.

And I sighed for the green fields
The purple dressed bog
Where I hiked through the twilight
With the old Collie dog.

And the old songs warmed me
On wintery days
And I carried my boyhood
Within all my ways

Until one breathless Spring
After years of the world
My spray soaring cliffs
Took me into their fold
And I faithfully traced
All the steps that I knew.

I walked all the rivers
Of memory that grew
In my hungry soul
By the trout rising mill
I sat with my boyhood
And gobbled my fill.

But the feast soon was finished
And I wandered alone
For the orchard was levelled
The bogs cut to the bone
New houses stumbled
Where daffodil grew
The old mills a factory
Trading horses for glue
And there in the water
My young image in oil
Looked back at a face
That had tasted the spoils
Of a city gone mad
With ignorant hate
That shattered my quietness
After the wait
And my moments of loss
Ground into the soul
Like spitting rain soaking
The line at the Dole.

So a man must look forward
Turn all his songs mute
For youth can't be played
On old battered flutes.

There's new life waiting silent
Like the mill water trout
New purple bogs listening
For dog barking shouts
New firesides to revive
An old ballad or rhyme
About walks through an Island
Lost in my innocent mind.

Will Millar