The Black Velvet Band Lyrics And Guitar Chords
Irish folk song. Traditional.The fingerstyle [ picking ]guitar tab is included plus a version in CGDA tuning for the tenor guitar / mandola. The 5 string banjo chords for the key of G are included. Van Dieman's Land is named after the Dutchman who discovered it. Many people were transported there by the British mostly for petty crime, causing a lifetime of misery for their families. Recorded by The Dubliners [ lyrics ], The Clancy Brothers, The High Kings, The Pogues, The Irish Rovers to name a few. The guitar / ukulele chords are in the key of D in chordpro, the same version I'm playing in the youtube video. It's a very easy song to learn. The sheet music for tin whistle for the black velvet band is also included on the site. The black velvet band fingerstyle guitar tab included.
Chorus]
Her[D] eyes they shone like diamonds,you think she was queen of the[A7] land.
With her[D] hair thrown over her shoulder,tied[A] up with a black velvet[D] band.
[1]
As I went walking down Broadway,not intending to stay very long,
I met with this frolicksome damsel,as she came tripping along.
[2]
A watch she took from his pocket,and slipped it right into my hand,
On the very first day that I met her,bad luck to the black velvet band.
[3]
Before the judge and jury,next morning we had to appear,
A gentleman claimed his jewellery,and the case against us was clear,
[4]
Seven long years transportation,right down to ''Van Diemen's Land''
Far away from my friends and companions,betrayed by the black velvet band,
[Chorus after every verse]
Her[D] eyes they shone like diamonds,you think she was queen of the[A7] land.
With her[D] hair thrown over her shoulder,tied[A] up with a black velvet[D] band.
[1]
As I went walking down Broadway,not intending to stay very long,
I met with this frolicksome damsel,as she came tripping along.
[2]
A watch she took from his pocket,and slipped it right into my hand,
On the very first day that I met her,bad luck to the black velvet band.
[3]
Before the judge and jury,next morning we had to appear,
A gentleman claimed his jewellery,and the case against us was clear,
[4]
Seven long years transportation,right down to ''Van Diemen's Land''
Far away from my friends and companions,betrayed by the black velvet band,
[Chorus after every verse]
Here's the guitar chords in the key of C.
Her [C] eyes they shone like diamonds,you think she was queen of the [G7] land.
With her [C] hair thrown over her shoulder,tied [G] up with a black velvet [C] band.
Key of G
Her [G] eyes they shone like diamonds,you think she was queen of the [D7] land.
With her [G] hair thrown over her shoulder,tied [D] up with a black velvet [G] band.
Her [C] eyes they shone like diamonds,you think she was queen of the [G7] land.
With her [C] hair thrown over her shoulder,tied [G] up with a black velvet [C] band.
Key of G
Her [G] eyes they shone like diamonds,you think she was queen of the [D7] land.
With her [G] hair thrown over her shoulder,tied [D] up with a black velvet [G] band.
Black velvet band guitar tab in G Major
Below is the list of sheet music and tin whistle songs that are in my ebooks. This is the largest collection of tin whistle songs ever put together.[over 800 songs ] Including folk, pop and trad tunes plus German And French songs along with Christmas Carols.
All of the sheet music tabs have been made as easy to play as was possible.
The price of the ebooks is €7.50
All of the sheet music tabs have been made as easy to play as was possible.
The price of the ebooks is €7.50
More Irish folk song guitar tabs are here .
Tenor guitar / mandola tab in CGDA Tuning
The black velvet band fingerstyle guitar tab
The 5 sting banjo chords for The Black Velvet Band for the key of G Major
Bass guitar tab for The Black Velvet Band
Guitar tab in DADGAD Irish tuning in the key of A Major.
Ebook of tabs in DADGAD
One of the first things you'll find in digging around Celtic music history is total confusion. You get to know a song, then run into someone else singing different words to the same tune. Time and again, one melody, myriad sets of lyrics. Rollin' in the Rye Grass, for example, also is known as The Lady's Top Dress, The Lady's Tight Dress, What the Divil Ails You? and about four dozen other titles.
Another grainy song, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, is about the 1798 Irish uprising (and its 19th-century author was a Fenian rebel himself, who fled to America to hammer out Irish songs and ballads). But this popular pipe reel had an earlier incarnation with Robert Burns, who had used it as Scots Wha' Hae' Wi' Wallace Bled, which is what the movie Braveheart is all about. It also was Robert the Bruce's march, only then it started out as Here Now the Day Dawns - none of which explains why it's also called Hey Tutti Tatti.
In fact, songs took on enough identities to give any psychiatrist a challenge, but it's not really difficult to understand. As one song hit a region and stuck around, its words got changed to reflect regional likes and dis- likes. An anthem became a nursery lullaby or nonsense song. Songs that traveled, or were misunderstood, mis- heard or misplaced, inevitably got changed. There also was some reincarnation and shape-shifting at work.
It also could work the other way, and a title become a magnet for melodies. There's a 27-verse Irish lament, Is bronach mo thocht, by 17th-century poet Seafraidh O Donnchadha. It's about the poet's pet spaniel, who was choked when a mouse being chased by a cat jumped into its mouth. This tale of tails became such a hit it coughed up enough tunes to equal its stanzas.
As for that perennial favourite Danny Boy to whom the "pipes are calling," people began arguing over whether the melody itself had come from: the sidhe folk of Irish legend, third-century Finn McCool, blind harpers Rory Dall Morrison, Rory Dall O'Cahan, Turlough O'Carolan, and Denis O'Hampsey, 19th-century blind fiddler Jimmy McCurry, or all of the above. And they're still at it.
Danny had picked up many different lyrics before it was so boyishly embraced, but English barrister Fred Weatherly scribbled away on a commuter train in 1910 to give us the ones we know. The melody itself is known as Londonderry Air by some, London Derrière by others. The whole thing has had a good run with the likes of Rosemary Clooney, tenor John McDermott, old-rockers Eric Clapton and Freddy Mercury, angst-filled youngster Sinead O'Connor, and it's not over yet.
As for who is actually singing to Danny within the song, well, author Malachy McCourt has tackled that question in his Danny Boy: The Beloved Irish Ballad. Right through a ten-down-to-number-one list, we're given a scholarly debate of contenders. Is it Danny's priest? His gay lover? His straight lover? Most likely... it's dear old Mum.
The melancholia of leave-taking continues in songs like The Irish Rover and Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore, which describe the emigrants' Atlantic voyage in no un- certain times. But though it may have been no fun to travel that way, it was a ceili compared to what's behind Black Velvet Band. In this song, the usual sucker meets
a dish with eyes like diamonds and hair tied up with, you guessed it, a black velvet band. They get all loopy together, then she slips a watch into his pocket at the market, he gets nabbed, and it's 10 years penal servitude.
This probably meant Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania),
where one Lt. John Brown lovingly had established a British Empire incarceration colony in the early 1800s. Mere petty crime got you a place on the boat, and the whole thing caused untold misery to family and lovers, as well as the convicted. It didn't stop them songwriting, though, and this black armband became a public service offering, to beware of those colleens who'll get you drunk, deported and digging ditches far away.
In fact, women inspired a lot of songs. The Rose of Tralee was penned in the 1830s by one William Mulchinock, who fell for Mary O'Connor, a domestic in his home. Alas, it was one of those doomed affairs because Mary was a commoner, William born to a grand family.
They firmly extricated him from this thorny web, or so they thought. He came back from India in 1849, stop- ped in at a pub to freshen up before calling on Mary, and just out the door collided with a funeral cortege. Willie's complexion became nearly as deathly as Mary's, and his heart broke like a worn-out fiddle string.
He married someone else, moved to America, had a family, separated, put himself back together and came back home to drink himself right into a grave state. In the end, Willie was united with Mary in the same plot, and you could only hope they both got something out of it. Irish communities around the world certainly did, because a big annual festival has taken root from the song, and celebrants come from all over for the crowning of the Rose Queen.
The Flowers of the Forest has little to do with either flora or girls, and everything to do with the flower of manhood lost at battle. This famous lament came into being after the Scottish King James IV lost by a long shot to the English at the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513. Others insist the song was written to commemorate the equally disastrous Battle of Culloden in 1746. Flodden, Culloden, a sorry affair that represents what so often happened to the Scots.
Once you get everything translated in the version that's full of words like Dowie and wae (dismal and sad) leglin (an illegitimate child) runkle (wrinkle) fleeching (begging), bogle (a spectre or hobgoblin) wede (withered) and dool (grief), you can only conclude this is no party song.
And though there's no evidence that a local woman immediately put the whole sodden disaster immediately into song as in Celtic tradition, two later ladies a la moan, Jane Elliot and Alison Cockburn, did create lyrics. To this day, the song is performed at funerals, even those with no battles behind them.
Loch Lomond is another depressing song about the Scottish Jacobite cause. Jacobite, by the way, was a highfalutin name for those who followed the Stuarts, most named James, or Jacobus in Latin. In fact, the Jacobites actually believed their king's authority came from God, not Parliament, and this did not sit well with the English in command. Thus, clans were decimated, families destroyed, and tartans, weapons and music ripped from the people.
One of Bonnie Prince Charlie Stuart's soldiers scribbled down this number after the Culloden disaster, though couldn't do much with it, as he was executed. His pal-in-arms did get away, and took the song back to the dead soldier's sweetheart. The writer of the song says, or sings, that he will reach Scotland before his companion, because his spirit will travel by the "low road." Pass the snoot-cloots (handkerchiefs), if you please.
The story behind MacPherson's Rant starts out lively enough, because freewheeling fiddler Jimmy MacPherson was a career robber, rather like Robin Hood, only there's no mention of his helping the poor. He mostly saw to himself, carrying out a reign of terror in Scottish markets as he did so. Sentenced to be hanged for arms-bearing in November 1700, he had the prescience of mind to compose this song while waiting for the end, and they let him play it on the scaffold. But the audience had little patience for a musical interlude. They'd just come for the main show.
MacPherson, trying again, offered his fiddle to the crowd, but had no takers. He slammed it over his knee, tossed the pieces aside and snarled to the hangman, "Mither told me there'd be days like this, when naething goes right. But maybe some bugger will remember the melody and immortalize me!" Which is exactly what happened. He also inspired MacPherson's Lament and Mac- Pherson's Farewell, a body of song known as The Three Terrors-and-Tears.
Auld Lang Syne is not such a downer, though it does result in some hangovers, because it's usually sung on New Year's Eve. And as poet Robert Burns is responsible for it (though took it down from "an old man's singing"), it's a safe bet a lot of his inspiration came from Scotch, which also may be why Burns' publisher rejected its original tune as "not quite right for us." That Burns was fixated on partying can be seen in Auld lyrics like "a cup of kindness," as well as in other Burnt offerings, that describe Scotch drinking, drinking to one's health, a tippling ballad, and the address of Beelzebub.
Scotland The Brave, also known as Road to the Isles, is pretty self-explanatory, and though it's usually played instrumentally, it has some rousing verses to match the melody. At last, something upbeat to remember Scotland by. Unfortunately, there's next to no information about this song, and that's probably why.
Another grainy song, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, is about the 1798 Irish uprising (and its 19th-century author was a Fenian rebel himself, who fled to America to hammer out Irish songs and ballads). But this popular pipe reel had an earlier incarnation with Robert Burns, who had used it as Scots Wha' Hae' Wi' Wallace Bled, which is what the movie Braveheart is all about. It also was Robert the Bruce's march, only then it started out as Here Now the Day Dawns - none of which explains why it's also called Hey Tutti Tatti.
In fact, songs took on enough identities to give any psychiatrist a challenge, but it's not really difficult to understand. As one song hit a region and stuck around, its words got changed to reflect regional likes and dis- likes. An anthem became a nursery lullaby or nonsense song. Songs that traveled, or were misunderstood, mis- heard or misplaced, inevitably got changed. There also was some reincarnation and shape-shifting at work.
It also could work the other way, and a title become a magnet for melodies. There's a 27-verse Irish lament, Is bronach mo thocht, by 17th-century poet Seafraidh O Donnchadha. It's about the poet's pet spaniel, who was choked when a mouse being chased by a cat jumped into its mouth. This tale of tails became such a hit it coughed up enough tunes to equal its stanzas.
As for that perennial favourite Danny Boy to whom the "pipes are calling," people began arguing over whether the melody itself had come from: the sidhe folk of Irish legend, third-century Finn McCool, blind harpers Rory Dall Morrison, Rory Dall O'Cahan, Turlough O'Carolan, and Denis O'Hampsey, 19th-century blind fiddler Jimmy McCurry, or all of the above. And they're still at it.
Danny had picked up many different lyrics before it was so boyishly embraced, but English barrister Fred Weatherly scribbled away on a commuter train in 1910 to give us the ones we know. The melody itself is known as Londonderry Air by some, London Derrière by others. The whole thing has had a good run with the likes of Rosemary Clooney, tenor John McDermott, old-rockers Eric Clapton and Freddy Mercury, angst-filled youngster Sinead O'Connor, and it's not over yet.
As for who is actually singing to Danny within the song, well, author Malachy McCourt has tackled that question in his Danny Boy: The Beloved Irish Ballad. Right through a ten-down-to-number-one list, we're given a scholarly debate of contenders. Is it Danny's priest? His gay lover? His straight lover? Most likely... it's dear old Mum.
The melancholia of leave-taking continues in songs like The Irish Rover and Paddy's Green Shamrock Shore, which describe the emigrants' Atlantic voyage in no un- certain times. But though it may have been no fun to travel that way, it was a ceili compared to what's behind Black Velvet Band. In this song, the usual sucker meets
a dish with eyes like diamonds and hair tied up with, you guessed it, a black velvet band. They get all loopy together, then she slips a watch into his pocket at the market, he gets nabbed, and it's 10 years penal servitude.
This probably meant Van Dieman's Land (Tasmania),
where one Lt. John Brown lovingly had established a British Empire incarceration colony in the early 1800s. Mere petty crime got you a place on the boat, and the whole thing caused untold misery to family and lovers, as well as the convicted. It didn't stop them songwriting, though, and this black armband became a public service offering, to beware of those colleens who'll get you drunk, deported and digging ditches far away.
In fact, women inspired a lot of songs. The Rose of Tralee was penned in the 1830s by one William Mulchinock, who fell for Mary O'Connor, a domestic in his home. Alas, it was one of those doomed affairs because Mary was a commoner, William born to a grand family.
They firmly extricated him from this thorny web, or so they thought. He came back from India in 1849, stop- ped in at a pub to freshen up before calling on Mary, and just out the door collided with a funeral cortege. Willie's complexion became nearly as deathly as Mary's, and his heart broke like a worn-out fiddle string.
He married someone else, moved to America, had a family, separated, put himself back together and came back home to drink himself right into a grave state. In the end, Willie was united with Mary in the same plot, and you could only hope they both got something out of it. Irish communities around the world certainly did, because a big annual festival has taken root from the song, and celebrants come from all over for the crowning of the Rose Queen.
The Flowers of the Forest has little to do with either flora or girls, and everything to do with the flower of manhood lost at battle. This famous lament came into being after the Scottish King James IV lost by a long shot to the English at the Battle of Flodden Field in 1513. Others insist the song was written to commemorate the equally disastrous Battle of Culloden in 1746. Flodden, Culloden, a sorry affair that represents what so often happened to the Scots.
Once you get everything translated in the version that's full of words like Dowie and wae (dismal and sad) leglin (an illegitimate child) runkle (wrinkle) fleeching (begging), bogle (a spectre or hobgoblin) wede (withered) and dool (grief), you can only conclude this is no party song.
And though there's no evidence that a local woman immediately put the whole sodden disaster immediately into song as in Celtic tradition, two later ladies a la moan, Jane Elliot and Alison Cockburn, did create lyrics. To this day, the song is performed at funerals, even those with no battles behind them.
Loch Lomond is another depressing song about the Scottish Jacobite cause. Jacobite, by the way, was a highfalutin name for those who followed the Stuarts, most named James, or Jacobus in Latin. In fact, the Jacobites actually believed their king's authority came from God, not Parliament, and this did not sit well with the English in command. Thus, clans were decimated, families destroyed, and tartans, weapons and music ripped from the people.
One of Bonnie Prince Charlie Stuart's soldiers scribbled down this number after the Culloden disaster, though couldn't do much with it, as he was executed. His pal-in-arms did get away, and took the song back to the dead soldier's sweetheart. The writer of the song says, or sings, that he will reach Scotland before his companion, because his spirit will travel by the "low road." Pass the snoot-cloots (handkerchiefs), if you please.
The story behind MacPherson's Rant starts out lively enough, because freewheeling fiddler Jimmy MacPherson was a career robber, rather like Robin Hood, only there's no mention of his helping the poor. He mostly saw to himself, carrying out a reign of terror in Scottish markets as he did so. Sentenced to be hanged for arms-bearing in November 1700, he had the prescience of mind to compose this song while waiting for the end, and they let him play it on the scaffold. But the audience had little patience for a musical interlude. They'd just come for the main show.
MacPherson, trying again, offered his fiddle to the crowd, but had no takers. He slammed it over his knee, tossed the pieces aside and snarled to the hangman, "Mither told me there'd be days like this, when naething goes right. But maybe some bugger will remember the melody and immortalize me!" Which is exactly what happened. He also inspired MacPherson's Lament and Mac- Pherson's Farewell, a body of song known as The Three Terrors-and-Tears.
Auld Lang Syne is not such a downer, though it does result in some hangovers, because it's usually sung on New Year's Eve. And as poet Robert Burns is responsible for it (though took it down from "an old man's singing"), it's a safe bet a lot of his inspiration came from Scotch, which also may be why Burns' publisher rejected its original tune as "not quite right for us." That Burns was fixated on partying can be seen in Auld lyrics like "a cup of kindness," as well as in other Burnt offerings, that describe Scotch drinking, drinking to one's health, a tippling ballad, and the address of Beelzebub.
Scotland The Brave, also known as Road to the Isles, is pretty self-explanatory, and though it's usually played instrumentally, it has some rousing verses to match the melody. At last, something upbeat to remember Scotland by. Unfortunately, there's next to no information about this song, and that's probably why.