For the good are always the merry, / Save by an evil chance,/ And the merry love the fiddle,/ And the merry love to dance: / And when the folk there spy me,/ They will all come up to me, / With,”Here is the fiddler of Dooney!” / And dance like a wave of the sea.
O, Love's but a dance,
Where Time plays the fiddle!
See the couples advance -
O, Love's but a dance!
A whisper, a glance,
"Shall we twirl down the middle?"
O, Love's but a dance,
Where Time plays the fiddle!
When I left the theater… I was thinking that I’d seen a classic of American dance. It confers a mythic dimension on ordinary aspects of our daily lives – it’s unfaked folk art. The dancers, crashing wave upon wave into those falls, have a happy insane spirit that recalls a unique moment in American life – the time we did the school play or we were ready to drown at a swimming meet. The last time most of us were happy in that way.
When you do dance, I wish you a wave o' the sea, that you might ever do nothing but that.
I'll string a fiddle with your guts and make you play it while I dance.
Those who refuse to play second fiddle may wind up playing no fiddle at all.
Classical is a more refined and structured dance form. Folk is made for celebration. That's not a very competitive dance form. Though you can bring classical on stage, folk becomes limited. Like you would love to do bhangra and garba at parties, but when you see it on stage, it is very limited in terms of movements.
The eternal principle, which never was born, never will die: it is in all things: it is in you now. You are the wave on the face of the ocean. When the wave is gone, is the water gone? Has anything happened? Nothing has happened. It is a play, a game, a dance.
The second fiddle. I can get plenty of first violinists, but to find someone who can play the second fiddle with enthusiasm
Lots of the bands [in New Orleans] couldn't read too much music. So they used a fiddle to play the lead - a fiddle player could read - and that was to give them some protection.
If someone asked what kind of music I play, I wouldn't say I'm a folk singer; however, if folk music means music for the people, and playing music to entertain them and share different messages, then sure, I'd like to think that I'm part folk singer.
I spin on the circle of wave upon wave of the sea.
New wave disco was coming to the fore then, and we were at a different point entirely. I like to listen to dance music, but I don't think I'm primarily a dance music writer.
There was a dance that everyone was doing that was heavily skewed with the power in one direction, but the dance was basically working, and then the dance got really disrupted with the first wave of feminism, and nobody found their footing yet - not the guys, not the women.
The wind? I am the wind. The sea and the moon? I am the sea and the moon. Tears, pain, love, bird-flights? I am all of them. I dance what I am. Sin, prayer, flight, the light that never was on land or sea? I dance what I am.
When it comes time to dance, they're like a regiment; they do the same steps - except for the Mike Teavee dance, where the Oompas play in a rock band. I learned to play the guitar for that one.