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🦋 The Sad Bells of Rhymney

I've been been listening to Fegmania! a lot over the past week (in its reissue in the Luminous Groove box set), and finding some things I really like about this record, which I had previously considered one of Robyn's weakest efforts. Today I've been getting very interested in the song "The Bells of Rhymney," which I'm embarrassed not to have already known is a classic of the 60's folk revival, written by Pete Seeger and performed variously by The Byrds, Judy Collins, The Alarm, and others.

I think Pete Seeger's is my favorite performance that I've heard so far:



(I think, but not quite sure, that this recording is from the Newport Folk Festival of 1959.)

And The Byrds are lovely and silly, standing gaily on the beach singing about mining disasters. I believe it is their version that Robyn is covering, as he sounds very similar to this:

The song is based on a poem from the book Gwalia Deserta, by miner-turned-teacher and poet Idris Davies, which Seeger found in a book of Welsh poetry compiled by Dylan Thomas. The poem (as near as I can understand) deals with the failure of a mine-workers' strike in 1926. Two other of Davies' poems can be seen in manuscript form at Welsh cultural history site Gathering the Jewels: "Rhymney", and "Rhymney Hill". David Librik gives more detail about the origins of the poem at this link (midway down), including this tantalizing couplet from Gwalia Deserta:

O what is man that coal should be so unmindful of him?
And what is coal that it should have so much blood on it?

Bells of Rhymney

Note: I found (at The Mudcat Café) some updated lyrics to this, composed by Mr. Steve Suffet, with help from Pete Seeger.

Bells of Kabul

posted evening of Tuesday, August 26th, 2008
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I recently realized that my four sons have no acquaintance with the traditional/folk songs I grew up with in a poetry-loving, hard-drinking Anglo/Irish midwestern family. I have gone in search of my childhood favorites. Among them is the "Bells of Rhymney," and so I discovered your site. I have listened to every version I can find of TBOR, and suggest to you the versions by the Ian Campbell Folk Group and The Boys from the Hill, both in the traditional Welsh mode.
By the way, the Anglo/Welsh pronunciation of "Rymney" (pace, The Byrds) is "rum-ny," but we Americans do insist on rhyme.
If you appreciate old labor songs, you must, if you haven't already, find a good version of "The 1913 Massacre," "Deportees," and "Banks of Marble," all by Woody Guthrie. Arlo Guthrie has eery recordings of the first two. The Weavers do the iconic version of BOM. Check out also Hedy West's versions of "Cotton Mill Girls," and "Lewiston Factory Mill Girls (Lewiston, ME. was a mill town, and Bates college there was established with Bates Mill money). God Bless, MBH

posted evening of January 26th, 2009 by Maggie H.

Thanks, Maggie, I'll take a listen to those versions. We're big fans of Woody around this house, I grew up listening to "Deportees" (though maybe first in Joan Baez' version) and "Banks of Marble". Don't know the "1913 Massacre" offhand but I'm sure I will remember it once I look it up.

posted evening of January 26th, 2009 by Jeremy

(And, I wish you well with getting your kids acquainted with folk music! That's a great thing to do.)

posted evening of January 26th, 2009 by Jeremy

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