hypersongs

Streets of Derry

An Irish traditional ballad, the third track of On the Shore.
Trees, from On the Shore (1971)

Trees credit the song as traditional. The album track runs 7:32 on Wikipedia and 7:34 on MusicBrainz, and MusicBrainz also lists a 2007 remix (7:35), a 1970 demo (6:12) from the 50th anniversary box, and a version on the LateNightTales compilation chosen by Belle and Sebastian, which we could not confirm. Music Aficionado calls the track the best example of Richard Thompson's influence on the album's guitar work and notes that Shirley Collins recorded the song differently on The Sweet Primroses (1967); a Prog Archives reviewer, in a search summary, hears a slow marching rhythm with psychedelic guitar in the instrumental bridge.

Others who have recorded the ballad include the Bothy Band (7:06), Sam Amidon, Moya Brennan and Oisin. We found no statement from Trees on its meaning, no chart or video, and no setlist.fm entries for songs (the site lists ten 1970 dates with no setlists). We could not confirm which version our upload is.

Sources

  1. On the Shore, Wikipedia
  2. On the Shore by Trees, Music Aficionado (2018-05-01)
  3. Trees, Record Collector (2020-11-02)