Sleeve Notes - You know me - Kevin McSherry
 
Lyrics to all the tracks on the Album can be found on this website, just move the curser over each track and the link will appear.
 
The Album “You Know Me,” was recorded and brilliantly mastered by Sam Parkinson at Stonegate Recording Studios, High Bentham. Thanks Sam!
 
I’d like also to thank the musicians and singers who gave their time to make this album. It has been a delight to work with you and I am very grateful.
 
The agriculture of The Dales was dependent on migrant labour from the period of the mass movement away from the land to the cities in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, right through to the middle of the twentieth century. With fewer people to carry out the heavy manual tasks of cutting and gathering the hay, farmers had to seek the help of itinerant labourers. Hiring fairs were held at important centres and market towns throughout the region and those seeking work would walk between them hoping to find employment and  accommodation.      
  
From the turn of the twentieth century most of those making their way to the hiring fairs came from Ireland, predominantly from the West and the counties of Galway, Connemara and Mayo. Friends describe the scene from their childhood memories of men and carts and horses being traded. Of the excitement as horses were taken through their paces and of the people, mostly men, all strangers that they were forbidden to talk to, being hired and taken back out to the countryside and into the fells.
 
There are two songs in the album which refer to this  migration and which examine the fact that people do not leave home and family without good reason. The first, All by the Quay, is a narrative which describes leaving Belfast and travelling by ship to Heysham and then hitching a ride into The Dales to find work. It describes the risk, the solitude, the sadness, the work and the frustration of being an itinerant labourer.
 
The second, Bentham Hirings is a light-hearted story of young love and courtship that exposes the innocence of the unworldly with the question “Why do you travel?” The answer is challenging and simple: “Because there’s no work … I’ve brothers and sisters at home I must feed.” We travel because we have a responsibility to care and provide for those with whom we share life.
 
Say my Name: seeks to expose the idea of otherness. This song examines the idea of our unique identity and asserts that by taking away someone’s name we rob them of part of that uniqueness and their humanity.  Doing so allows them to be treated in a different manner, as lesser people. We can see this happen in the playground and we saw the extreme in Nazi-controlled Europe, when Jews were tattooed with a number. The idea has been examined in some important songs in the past, notably Deportees by Woody Guthrie. Say My Name is an attempt to bring about an awareness of the power of vocabulary to harm and to heal. It is a call for us to be aware of the uniqueness and the importance of each life and to recognise it in the manner with which we address those that we don’t yet know.
 
Tripoli, written by Michael McSherry, is a lullaby sung to a child as a boat carrying migrants leaves the comparative shelter of the bay of Tripoli to make the terrifying journey across the Mediterranean Sea. Like all other lullabies it is a gentle reassurance that all will be well. We know, however, that for many the end is likely to be dire. The song challenges us again to be in sympathy with those who are forced by circumstance to take terrible decisions, knowing the risks to their own lives and to the lives of those they love.
 
Fascism and populist politics are on the rise again and populism thrives on the creation of division and hate. Daily we hear the rantings of apparent fools who grab headlines and dominate the written and the broadcast media. They make the most outrageous and egregious statements, undermine established civic structures and insult the intellect, yet they continue to garner support. The tool of the populist is the referendum and the apparent simplicity of their binary questions. The German constitution has banned their use since the end of the Third Reich. Populist politics creates and amplifies imagined divisions in order to engender conflict and in so doing to elevate those who create that conflict to leadership. It is a trend that is achieving success across the globe. Binary Decisions is a simple, rocking, back-porch blues that exposes and mocks this dangerous movement.
 
There is a belief, perpetuated by some people of influence, that the poor are responsible for their own poverty, that they are feckless and have no spirit for work; that hardship is a driver and an imperative that will motivate them to find work and to climb out of their own poverty. The myth travels hand-in-hand with a belief in entitlement and legitimate privilege. Such voices as expound this philosophy can also be heard repeating the myth that if you give the poor more money they will simply waste it on booze and fags. The song Whisky and Gin, written by Michael McSherry, wonderfully mocks this misconstruct.
 
Sledging on my Own: We had a great dump of snow one day, I could see that it wasn’t going to last and there were no children in the house to take sledging, so I had to go on my own. This song is about finding and celebrating the child inside you; and about sledging.
 
The Maid of Malham Moor: Boy meets girl on the moor and they sing together and the beauty and togetherness of the occasion is remembered for a lifetime. Such is the connection that music can give. This song was first written and performed in the style of a nineteenth-century ballad. For this album it has been recorded in reggae style.
 
I have sung on the moor with friends on sharp winter nights, when the cold has bitten at the inside of our noses and the still night air has carried our voices out into the darkness. Three Men Came a Walking is a song of joy and of love and of hope.
 
Kelly’s Revenge: Good tunes often have two names, this was once called The Migrant Worker’s Jig. A couple of my sons renamed it Kelly’s Revenge, it is probably a bit snappier.
 
Always and You know me are love songs. I hope they find some resonance.
 
The songs in this album were written during the time when the country was reeling with the xenophobia that has been given confidence by the referendum to leave the EU. Issues of migration and alienation dominate current political debate and part of the album explores migration and its importance, particularly in the context of the Yorkshire Dales where I live. The worn boots of the cover design are intended to symbolise these migrations. Other songs have been discovered while working in the song mine or fashioned from earlier poems. One or two were snatched from the air as they passed and fastened with writing to paper while they wriggled to escape. The motivation for making the recording was so that others could join the song. Please do. The process of making it has been an education and a joy. The title of the Album is taken from the title of the final track. It also resonates with the celebration of our uniqueness and humanity that is the common theme.