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Waiting for Angels

[Martin Carthy]

Martin Carthy played this tune as the title track of his 2004 album, Waiting for Angels. He noted:

Seems to me that the memory of a remarkable man is looming large over parts of this CD. I’m talking about the late Hamish Henderson, poet, songwriter, scholar, Scot and Internationalist. The title Waiting for Angels, a tune which I began writing about ten or twelve years ago and finished in his memory, is taken from his book of World War Two, Elegies for the Dead in Cyrenaica. The Bloody Fields of Flanders is a tune from World War One to which Hamish put hie memorable Freedom Come-All-Ye. Actually he once told me that there was evidence that the tune was around before the war and was adopted and named during the conflict itself. Regardless of that, the tune is a corker and his words would make a remarkable National Anthem. Hint. It’s followed by MacGregor of Rora, a lovely brooding tune which I found in the Scots Guards tune book and about which I know nothing.