It has 14 tracks of unsurpassed brilliance:
1. FRUIT 4.28 Lyrics
(K.Fletcher)
Should you dare to ask me where I’ve been…
2. INVOCATION / STRÖMMING BOATS 3.36 Lyrics LISTEN
(Trad arr. K.Fletcher)
A Manx invocation for fair weather & a Norwegian maiden’s lament after unfair weather.
The Sea Invocation was collected and translated by Mona Douglas, and published in her book Twelve Manx Folksongs. The Strömming Boat Song comes from 'Folk Songs of the World'. Both books belong to my parents. The strömming is a small fish not dissimilar to the herring.
3. CLOSE MY EYES 3.35 Lyrics LISTEN
(K & C & J Fletcher arr K Fletcher) MooseMusic UK
About God and school. Or maybe it’s just a breaking up song. I don’t know, I was nineteen and a bit mixed up when I wrote it!
4. CRUEL SISTER 4.26 Lyrics LISTEN
(Trad arr. K.Fletcher)
No one ever tells you what happened to the middle sister…perhaps she ran away with the instrument maker and learnt to play the jouhikko…The hints of musicology in this song are as fascinating as the story and Corwen tells me more research into the Bowed Harp is long overdue.
5. BEYOND THE SILENCE 4.30 Lyrics LISTEN
(K.Fletcher)
In times of distress the safest place to be was under mum & dad’s baby grand.
6. BREEZES OF CHANGE 5.42 Lyrics
(K.Fletcher)
The last song I wrote before we set off on the 2000km Pilgrimage from Dorset to the end of the Ancient World in Galicia... For Cathie and Phil, fellow pilgrims.
7. IF WISHES WERE HORSES… 3.56 Lyrics LISTEN
(K.Fletcher)
And if turnips were watches, I’d wear one by my side.
A patchwork of moans sewn into a love song.
8. LULLABY 2.50 Lyrics
(K & C Fletcher arr K Fletcher)
My anti war song, written for the last Balkan conflict and still sung for Iraq and Afghanistan…
9. SWEET ENGLAND 3.54 Lyrics
(Trad arr. K.Fletcher)
Do the English have Hiraeth too? Would she recognise England if she saw it now?
10. MIDNIGHT 4.09 Lyrics
(K.Fletcher)
There are powers in this universe about which we know nothing….
11. SPINNING SONG 2.09 Lyrics LISTEN
(Trad arr. K.Fletcher)
From the Hebribes. Perhaps this spell is more reliable than tossing apple peel over your shoulder on May Morning. At least you get a jumper at the end of it, if not a man. My parents' extensive collection of music contained a book of Hebridean songs. Sadly I lent the book to someone and never got it back, so all I know is the song itself although a friend from Scotland once heard me sing it and said she had learnt it at school as a girl. I only understood this song's trance inducing magic after I learnt to spin.
12. RIVER SONG 2.13 Lyrics
(George Whitfield arr. K.Fletcher) Freakline Publishing/Vegiton Musikverlag
I borrowed this song and an accordion ten years ago from my friend George Whitfield. I still have them both – I hope he doesn’t need them back just yet!
13. VALLEY SONG 4.18 Lyrics LISTEN
(K.Fletcher)
Written in one beautiful place, Erraid, where I found my garden, about another, the Pennant Valley, where I found my voice.
14. THE BROKEN STRING 5.23 (Words Xaa-tting, music K.Fletcher) Lyrics
These are the words of Xaa-tting, a San Bushman, on the death of his friend who was shot whilst going forth in the spirit shape of a lion. His words were transcribed by Wilhelm Bleek, a Dutch linguist, who opened his home to Bushmen convicted of stealing cattle and studied their language and culture. In 2005 we made a pilgrimage on foot from Dorset to Fistera in Galicia. We raised a little money for Survival International’s Bushmen Appeal Fund. In December 2006, while this recording was being made, the Bushmen won their case against the Government of Botswana and have been allowed to return to the Kalahari, their ancestral home. See Survival's website for more info.