Feature by Northings
Bob Dylan in Gaelic
Gaelic is the Loving Tongue
RODY GORMAN describes his project to translate the songs of Bob Dylan and original country blues songs into Gaelic
A COUPLE of years ago I received a letter from the musician and songwriter Roddy Woomble about a project of his. He and his group Idlewild had worked with the poet Edwin Morgan and he’d had the idea of piecing a record together where Scottish writers wrote the words and musicians brought them to life – his words – with music.
He mentioned names such as Kathleen Jamie and Don Paterson as possible collaborators. Would I be up for writing lyrics for a song or two myself? Of course. Among the songs I sent him was a Scottish Gaelic version I wrote of Bob Dylan’s It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry [see full article].
Roddy Woomble’s project, The Ballads of the Book, snowballed and although there were no takers for the Dylan song in Gaelic – there weren’t any Gaelic singers as such involved in the project – he came back to me with the further idea of producing a CD of Gaelic versions of Dylan songs…
To read the full text of Rody’s article (8,000 words), download the pdf from the link below.
© Rody Gorman, 2007
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