Suo Gan: A Song History

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"Suo Gân" is a Welsh lullaby, and its title says exactly that: suo means to lull and cân means song.[1] The Traditional Tune Archive lists the air as traditional and dates its first appearance in print to about 1800.[1] Accounts of the words differ: the Tune Archive credits the Welsh folklorist Robert Bryan with recording them, while Classic FM says he found it in a manuscript and supplemented its text with words he wrote himself.[1][2] Bryan (1858–1920) was a Denbighshire-born poet and composer who also edited two volumes of Celtic airs under the title Alawon y Celt.[3] The antiquarian Frank Kidson, writing in Grove's Dictionary, judged the melody "evidently quite old."[1]

Black-and-white print of a woman in flowing robes cradling a sleeping baby

Katsushika Hokusai, A Woman and Baby, monochrome woodblock print, 1830s. A Japanese mother and child, shown for the lullaby's subject; it has no connection to the song.

Hymnary.org lists the melody as the hymn tune SUO GAN, in 8.7.8.7 double meter, paired with texts such as "Christ before Us" and "Now the Heavens Start to Whisper."[4] Film audiences know it from Steven Spielberg's 1987 Empire of the Sun, where the boy Jim, played by Christian Bale, sings it.[2] La-La Land Records' two-disc soundtrack release, built around John Williams's score, credits the performance to the Ambrosian Junior Choir directed by John McCarthy, with James Rainbird as soloist.[5]

More recently, the young Welsh treble Cai Thomas sang it over the closing credits of the ITV drama The Pembrokeshire Murders.[2] Gail L. Van Amberg includes it in her MaxDAD Songbook, written for the five-string MaxDAD mountain dulcimer tuned DADAD, published by Fingers Of Steel.[6]

Our book that contains the song "Suo Gan"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Annotation:Suo Gân".
  2. Classic FM: "The Pembrokeshire Murders: what's the title song 'Suo-Gân' in the credits, and who sings it?".
  3. Dictionary of Welsh Biography: "Bryan, Robert (1858 - 1920), poet and composer".
  4. Hymnary.org: "Suo Gan".
  5. La-La Land Records: "Empire of the Sun: Limited Edition (2 CD Set)".
  6. Fingers Of Steel: "Gail L. Van Amberg, MaxDAD Songbook".
  7. Image: Katsushika Hokusai, A Woman and Baby, monochrome woodblock print, 1830s. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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