Codail Sámh

Lyrics:

Codail sámh, grá mo chroí,
Lig do scith, grá mo chroí
Fan anseo tamaillín
Codail sámh.

Sleep by my shoulder for a time
Rest your head on my chest and I will hold you tight
Stay here with me tonight.

I’ll do my best not to hurt you
If you promise to do the same
Your eyelashes distract me
Keep me watching your face, while you

Sleep by my shoulder for a time
Rest your head on my chest and I will hold you tight
Stay here with me tonight.

You like music to go to sleep to
It just keeps me awake
But I’m content to lie here holding you
And keep watching your face, while you…

Codail sámh, grá mo chroí,
Lig do scith, grá mo chroí
Fan anseo tamaillín
Codail sámh.

Sleep by my shoulder for a time
Rest your head on my chest and I will hold you tight
Stay here with me tonight.

Sleep, Rest, Stay.

© eamon brett

About this song:

This song has gone through many permutations, and different versions, before it finally came together and took shape properly. Two of the sections were written together, and were originally a piano ballad, that was then reworked into a terrible upbeat version of the song. It was one of those songs that always felt like it wasn’t working. I couldn’t put my finger on what was missing until I realised that the song was really a kind of lullaby without the actual lullaby part. I wrote that section very quickly when I realised what was missing. Suddenly the song fit together, and the vocal layers all suddenly made sense to me. The lullaby has to main melodies, and then a number of harmonies that flesh it out.

In recording the song, I’d no plan at all to have much extra instrumentation, as the vocal layering is so dense in places, and the piano has two separate parts at one point, so I didn’t want the sound to collapse under too much weight. But the day the drummer came in, he said he had very specific ideas for two of the songs, and this was one of them. We gave him free reign to show it to us – he explained it as being like a heartbeat, and when I heard it played along to what we had already recorded it made perfect sense, and completely gave the song a sense of trajectory despite the looping of the layers at that point in the song. George also added some beautiful flourishes with his double bass that never intruded on the song, but kept it moving.

Song credits:

mister ebby – piano, vocals
meadhbh sullivan – vocals
george guilfoyle – double bass
karl hand – drums

Rough lyric translation:

Sleep peacefully, love of my heart,
Relax, love of my heart,
Stay here a little while,
Sleep peacefully.