Influential Irish folksinger Luke Kelly once met his poet counterpart, Patrick Kavanagh in a pub off Grafton Street in Dublin one day, or so the story goes. During that meeting (in long-gone days when such legendary events were casually possible) the poet gave the folksinger a set of lyrics and told him to sing them to the tune of “The Dawning of the Day.”
The rest is something like history.
This is my attempt to do the ageless piece of art (and the immortal men who created it) justice, alone beside the road.
Performed and recoded in Maine by Troy R. Bennett (that’s me!) as part of my “Alone Beside the Road” video series. This DIY series of songs was inspired by a giant, wet plate collodion Ambrotype my friend Daniel Afzal shot of me and my Ural sidecar motorcycle at John Coffer’s Tintype Jamboree in the summer of 2022. It’s the picture you see at the start of the video.
Another friend, Dean Clegg, mastered the audio for me.
