Cruachan - 'The Crow' (official music video)

Black as coal with the Devil’s eye
Fly like a witch in the evening sky
Black as coal with the Devil’s eye
Men flee, men hide, and children cry

Oh the crow does sit on the shortest branch
Of the oldest oak there be
And she views her vast surroundings
With an ominous sense of glee
She’s more devious than the falcon
She is wiser than the owl
She has seen the greatest feats of men
And has witnessed deeds most foul

Black as coal with the Devil’s eye
Fly like a witch in the evening sky
Black as coal with the Devil’s eye
Men flee, men hide, and children cry

Oh she softly glides to the earth below
Cloaked in childish dreams of night
And settles upon a pile of dead
Neither sorrowful nor contrite
For the dead - they were once children
They were wards of a pious state
Well now they lie here lifeless
Victims of an imposed faith

Black as coal with the Devil’s eye
Fly like a witch in the evening sky
Black as coal with the Devil’s eye
Men flee, men hide, and children cry

Oh the sisters call her a wicked bird
As they run and wave their arms
But the crow respects the olden ways
Of nature spells, and forest charms
She calls the children to her
And to her they do come
They leave the evils of men’s earth
And fly towards the rising sun

Πριν από τριάντα έτη, το μακρινό 1992, δημιουργήθηκαν στην Ιρλανδία οι Minas Tirith. Έναν χρόνο αργότερα μετονομάσθηκαν σε Cruachan και συνεχίζουν ακάθεκτοι μέχρι τις ημέρες μας (με ένα μικρό διάλειμμα από τα μέσα του 1997 έως τον Ιανουάριο του 1999).

Μας συστήνονται κάπως έτσι:

«Cruachan were formed by Keith Fay in 1992, originally called 'Minas Tirith', the name was changed when the direction focused more on Irish history and mythology. The main defining factor for Cruachan is the fusion of Irish folk music with metal, which had never been done before.»

...και έχουν κυκλοφορήσει οκτώ (8) "ολοκληρωμένους" δίσκους, δύο (2) demos, ισάριθμα (2) singles, μία συλλογή, ένα (1) ep και ένα (1) Boxed set. Προ διετίας ξεκίνησαν συνεργασία με την δισκογραφική εταιρεία Despotz records με προοπτική να "βγει" το ένατο (9ο) full length album τους. Μέχρι τώρα η συνεργασία τους απέφερε δύο singles, το "The Hawthorn" πρόπερσι και το "The Crow" που κυκλοφόρησε χθες. Εστιάζουμε στο δεύτερο...

Δελτίο τύπου: «‘The Crow’, the second single from Irish folk-metal pioneers Cruachan upcoming ninth album ‘The Living and the Dead’, is a wonderful blend of the band’s hardest metal riffs and hauntingly beautiful folk and traditional instruments.

The song was written to commemorate all those who died in Ireland’s Mother and Baby Homes. Featuring backing vocals from actor Jon Campling (Harry Potter, Final Fantasy), who makes his recording debut on this track. Mother and baby homes were run by religious orders, starting in the 1920s, and funded by the Irish government.

9000 children died at 14 mother and baby homes over several decades. The institutions, where unmarried women and girls were sent to give birth in secrecy and were pressured to give their children up for adoption, were also responsible for unethical vaccine trials and traumatic emotional abuse.

For decades, the stories of these places and the atrocities carried out in them, were largely unspoken or brushed under the carpet - despite calls from the mothers who became virtual prisoners within their walls and children who spent their earliest years there, later sharing stories of neglect and abuse.

But as Ireland made strides to reckon with the uglier aspects of its conservative Catholic roots, deeply intertwined with the foundation of the state, there have been recent moments when the scale of the systemic abuses have been thrust into the light.

The biggest controversy, and the story that brought this to the worlds attention was the ‘Tuam Baby Controversy’ where hundreds of infant skeletons were discovered in a septic tank near a home in Tuam, County Galway.

In the song, the dead children are not forgotten. They are innocent souls, they fell on a battlefield they never asked to be in. The Crow is The Morrigan, she comes to claim these fallen children and save them from the horrors perpetrated by the church.»