CHILDREN OF THE DUST
Artiste: Pete Arnold
Pete Arnold was born in Liverpool, England, UK, in 1949. A guitar and banjo playing folk singer songwriter from a Dublin-Irish family background, and founder member of folk groups Salty Dog, Johnny Was, The Travelling Folk, Peaky Blinders and Almost Blues. His history in the folk scene spans some forty years learning his trade in clubs such as the “Old Washhouse” folk club in Lord Street, Liverpool, “Gregsons Wall” the home club of “The Spinners” and other folk clubs on the Wirral and Merseyside area, before moving on to appearances initially with the Creek Jug Band touring the UK and Ireland, whilst at the same time songwriting and winning three Welsh Eistedfodd song writing prizes.
Pete Arnold’s songs have also been acclaimed by many other folk artistes such as the Fureys recording Pete’s song “I Remember Mary” for EMI Records on their “Claddagh Road” album release to Ireland’s Brendan Shine recording Pete’s song the “Robinsons Ball” for Play Records released on CD, cassette, video, DVD and film, to various other international folk artistes performing and recording Pete’s songs, to congratulatory correspondence and interest on Pete’s songwriting and performing from that legend of folk, Christy Moore etc.
Pete Arnold’s notable appearances over the years with his various groups in England, UK, have been not only at eminent folk clubs but also at folk festivals to include the Bromyard Folk Festival, Kendal Folk Festival, The Sidmouth Folk Festival, The Edinburgh Folk Festival, The Cambridge Folk Festival, The Cheltenham Folk Festival, to name but a few.
As a songwriter Pete Arnold’s achievements are numerous to include being the winner of the 21st Anniversary competition for Birmingham Bull Ring where the song was commercially released, Winner of the Edinburgh Folk Festival “Songsearch” competition with the song “Echoing Still”,Birmingham Buskers competition winners 1985/86 and 1986/87, songwriter and performer of the song “Olympic City 1992” the song chosen by the Birmingham Olympic Committee as their official anthem to host the 1992 Olympic games (commercially released on record), the song “The Fitzroy Girl” placed fourth out of 3,600 songs at the Kendal Folk Festival (released commercially on record and which has become a classic folk song being recorded by many folk artistes, voted top act at the Droitwitch SPA Busking Festival. The song “Ghost Trains” being placed out of 4,000 songs entered for the 1987 Legal and General “Songsearch” competition, songwriting contributor with songs “Summer Lane” and “Tall Ships”featuring on the British Rail Commemorative album celebrating twenty-one years of inner city travel, songwriter, performer and producer of BBC West Midlands television’s song “Children In Need”, contributor to Radio West Midlands for many years to the stations weekly spot “It’s a Dogs Life” and to broadcasts and performances on BBC Pebble Mill and “Central Live Weekend” television and much, much more. Peter Arnold’s folk release “Children of the Dust” is digitally re-mastered from mainly unreleased archive recordings which are part of English and Irish folk history.
Track & Title
Description
Composer
Duration
1. CHILDREN OF THE DUST
This tragic song expresses in many ways the most painful of all tragedies of the Holocaust – the fate of many children – no one can read or hear about these terrible years without being moved and at times overwhelmed by the ruthless, diabolical destruction of young life, from the tiniest baby to the teenager on the verge of what ought to have been the years of opportunity and fulfilment (Martin Gilbert – “The Holocaust”) this song is truly one to stir the emotions.
Peter Arnold
4’00
2. THE FITZROY GIRL
A true story and a highly emotional song about Rosemary Fitzroy, who in 1922 died of consumption in a Paris sanatorium near Montparnasse, France. Six months earlier, her father, mother, elder brother and younger sister died savagely in an Irish republican ambush outside the town of Colraine. Rosemary’s lover was a member of that same IRA brigade, betrayed, rejected and devastated she left the shores of Ireland in the company of a young British officer, a long time admirer. It is his story that the song recalls and the unassailable fact that the innocent always seem to suffer disproportionately to the guilty, whatever and wherever the conflict.
Peter Arnold
4’32
3. COBBLESTONE DAYS
This song is about recalling childhood days in Liverpool.
Peter Arnold
3’33
4. WILD GEESE
A song and story about Irish workers moving to England seeking work and reminiscing dreams of home back in Ireland.
Peter Arnold / Keith Slater
4’47
5. THE DRUMS OF CHILDHOOD DREAMS
A classic song based loosely on recollections of Pete Arnold’s grandfather who saw action at Gallipoli (1915) and the Somme (1916) and was later invalided out of the army.
Peter Arnold
5’23
6. LADY MARY
A song which recalls the legend of a ruined fort on the west coast of Ireland, one of the thirty to forty thousand ruined forts throughout Ireland, two thousand in Limerick alone. During Oliver Cromwell’s insurgence in 1649, it tells of a royalist cavalier who during his flight from Cromwell’s men, abducted the beautiful Lady Mary from her future Lord Martin and fled to the comparative safety of France.
Peter Arnold
3’47
7. MIDNIGHT ON THE ROAD
A song and story about lost love, down-and-out and out of luck, travelling and moving on.
Peter Arnold
4’01
8. GHOST TRAINS
A song about bright eyed children who would chalk up pictures of ghosts, witches and skeletons on the walls of back entries down Earl Road in Liverpool and pretend they were the famed “Ghost Train” of New Brighton, a ferry ride across the Mersey. Like the fairground in New Brighton, the game has long since finished, childhood friends are gone but the fond memories are never forgotten.
Peter Arnold
3’56
9. ECHOING STILL
A song about and for Liverpool, bringing a contrast of sadness and joy, with the Edge Hill in the song being the last stop on the London train before Lime Street and with the Black River (Mersey) speaking for itself.
Peter Arnold
3’44
10. EASY COME MORNINGS
A song and story of love.
Peter Arnold
4’08
11. REMEMBRANCE DAY
A song originally written for the BBC to commemorate “Poppy Day” and is a testament to the valour of all those who fight for the right to freedom, expressing the insanity of man.
Peter Arnold
3’45
12. TIME WAS
An emotional song and story about lost love.
Peter Arnold
3’32
13. I REMEMBER MARY
A song and story reminiscing about a rag-tag child, schooldays and romance. A song also recorded by The Fureys and released by EMI Records on their Claddagh Road album release
Peter Arnold
3’04
14. PRECIOUS LADY
A song about romantic difficulties with a very beautiful vagabond lady.
Peter Arnold
3’10
15. THE LEINSTER FUSILIER
A song about a Leinster Fusilier going off to fight in the First World War when he met a family at Dublin railway station who was avoiding the Easter Uprising and travelling to Donegal.
Peter Arnold / Roderick Jones
5’05
16. THE NIGHT OF THE ROBINSONS BALL
A song and story about a summer ball arranged for the Robinsons sisters, Nancy, Mary and Sarah-Jane, where their father was hoping to find suitable husbands for all three daughters, he invited the rich to come to the Robinsons Ball, there came Lords, the handsome, the young and the frail, none were exempt for his daughters to tempt, the father thought he couldn’t fail. But in the end, the sisters found none to their taste, but the source of their joy were the bold Galway boys with fiddle and bow in their hand, to the father’s dismay the girls ran off with the boys from the band. The moral of the story is it’s all very well to take your horse to the well but sure you just can’s make it drink! A song recorded also by the acclaimed Irish artiste, Brendan Shine, and released on Irish record lable, Play Records.
Peter Arnold
3’43
17. CASSANDRA’S LAST WALTZ
An emotional song and story about Cassandra.
Peter Arnold
4’58