Unusual Instruments Used in Songs #Bagpipes
Good morning, Kittens and Dawgs! It’s fabulous to see you! Are you ready to groove to some mewsic? I don’t think anyone has come up with this week’s unique theme, “unusual instruments used in songs“. This is a theme worth repeating, so I decided to select only songs featuring bagpipes. Hit play to boogie to my playlist!
🎶My song picks🎶
It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘N Roll) AC/DC
Mull of Kintyre (1977) Paul McCartney & Wings
Forever Marty Wilson-Piper
Come Talk to Me Peter Gabriel
Tomorrow U2
The Silent Boatman (1970) Parliament
Shout Tears For Fears
You’re the Voice John Farnham
I Want My Tears Back Nightwish
🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶🎶
For more inspiration on song choices, I stumbled on these links…
The 10 Best Uses of Bagpipes in Rock
Right now, I invite you to join fellow co-hosts (everyone is not up to full capacity yet): XmasDolly (Party Coordinator), Stacy, Colette, Alana, and this month’s co-host, Michele from Angels Bark by linking your mewsic post below.
[tweetthis]I’m boogieing to “songs using unusual instruments” with the #MondaysMusicMovesMe gang. Come hit the dance floor with me! @xmasdolly [/tweetthis]
Keep those tunes playing, your body swaying, and I’ll be boogieing over to see you soon. Share a cuppa coffee with me tomorrow with Cathy Chats. 😉
X💋X 💋, Cathy
41 Comments
Alana Mautone (@RamblinGarden)
I have a couple of new fave songs – Mull of Kintyre and The Silent Boatman. About the latter, what I knew of Parliament was their really funky sound. This was so different and I just loved it. Bagpipes. Harp. Clapping. And then there was Nightwish. Another new group and fav song. What a mighty playlist!
Debbie D.
What a fun theme! 😀 I was pleasantly surprised to see AC/DC and Nightwish in the playlist. John Farnham was unfamiliar to me. Another nice surprise!
greyzoned/angelsbark
Hey Cathy,
Happy Tuesday! Hope all is well in your world. I haven’t gotten to your post yet talking about your crazy week but I’ll get there. I have to first say THANK YOU for the fabulous laugh that I got from your meme with the kitty wailing out some hilarious blues lyrics! hahaha. That cracked me up. Girl, I needed that. You have no idea how much I needed that….
I really like your instrument choice. Bagpipes are so interesting. And great minds think alike: I have started putting together some of my other posts for this instrument series that I’ve decided to do (Here we go… Sigh. 🙂 ) and your #1 song in the playlist is also my #1 song! I LOVE that song. AC/DC was one of those bands that played an integral part of my teenage years, them and Aerosmith, and as much as they were in my top favorite bands back then, I never had the opportunity (or took the opportunity) to see them in concert. But sometimes it felt like it because my friends and I used to follow a few bands around town as they performed at various venues; AC/DC sngs were a big part of their set lists so I did a lot of time on the dance floor dancing to “It’s a Long Way to the Top…”
Another favorite here is Tears for Fears’ “Shout”.
You have a great playlist here and several of the songs are new-to-me. I espcially liked Parliament’s song. And I enjoyed John Farham’s song too. I never heard of Nightwish either. Cool name for a band. Where are they from?
I’m really digging all your bagpipe selections. Great playlist. One that I’ll be coming back to just to plug in and listen to while I work on other things. Thanks for playing along with me theme. I hope you enjoyed it.
It’s almost hump-day…Sounds like you might be having a week like mine. I hate wishing time away because it always goes so fast anyway, but I’m ready to get out of this week’s mojo, whatever might be jacking the universe around…. 🙂
Michele at Angels Bark
Cathy Kennedy
Michele,
I’m glad the laughs helped. 🙂 The band Nightwish is from Finland. I can’t recall how I found them but I did a feature on them in 2017 and then again earlier this year. I’m happy to know that you enjoyed my playlist. You certainly came up with an excellent theme choice!
Cathy Keisha (@CathyKeisha)
Wht a supercool playlist! We love U2, Peter Gabriel and Marty Wilson-Piper’s band The Church. We have almost all their records—yeah, records—and highly recommend the song “Unguarded Moment.” Dunno if it has bagpipes but it’s amazing.
Cathy Kennedy
Cathy,
We had a stash of LPs and albums stored at DH’s boyhood home but didn’t even look for those last month while back there to gather our belongings. Time and circumstances wasn’t on our side to delve into all the possible places things might be lurking, forcing us to ditch the effort to locate what wasn’t already gathered by the new owner. Thinking about that is disturbing and I’m sure will haunt both of us for the rest of our lives. I went immediately to YT to listen to your recommendation Unguarded Moment by the band, The Church. Now, I’m not sure if I knew this band before I accidentally stumbled upon them in 2013 when I was participating in the Alphabe-Thursday weekly meme. The letter prompt was ‘U’, so I came up with Under the Milky Way and Stars where I used a song by this band. Incidentally, ‘Unguarded Moments’ doesn’t appear to have bagpipes but it’s a good song nonetheless and I appreciated the share. It’s great seeing you here. Please, don’t be a stranger! 😉
A.C. Melody
Hi sorry it’s me again – I commented before I was done listening to all your songs on your list. The AC/DC video won’t play for some reason, but I’ll try to look it up on YouTube. Just wanted to point out that you actually have two unique instruments listed! 🙂 Okay, technically they’re still bagpipes, but U2 ‘s song “Tomorrow” is not using the traditional Scottish bagpipes, that’s Uileann Pipes which is the Irish version and I do think they were used by the Cranberries in their songs, too.
Cathy Kennedy
Melody,
I fixed the AC/DC video. Thanks! I am happy to know that I used two different bagpipes in my song selections. I had no clue really but why are they different? You raised my curiosity with this now, so here’s what I found out for those unknowing like me…
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blockquote>Uilleann pipes have most of their pipes downwards. The Scottish bagpipes have their pipes going upwards.
A.C. Melody
Yes, and Uilleann pipes are only played while sitting, where Scottish bagpipes are always played while standing.
Cathy Kennedy
Melody,
Isn’t it amazing the wealth of information just waiting for you on the Internet? Years ago, you had to have access to a set of encyclopedias to learn much of what you can with a few clicks on the computer.
A.C. Melody
It really is, and it’s kind of funny that for us that grew up before the “internet” was literally right at your fingertips, we still ask each other questions. My sister and I do it to each other all the time, and then one of our kids will say “Why don’t you just Google it?” LOL
A.C. Melody
Korn has a song that starts with bagpipes, but they don’t stay through the whole song. It’s really cool to see how many different bands have used them in their music, though, great post! 🙂
Cathy Kennedy
Melody,
I’m not familiar with Korn. Which song are you speaking of? Perhaps, I can find it on YT to listen to. Thanks for stopping by!
A.C. Melody
It’s called “Shoots and Ladders” like the children’s game. Korn was really popular in the 90’s and early 2000’s, but they have a unique sound that can be an acquired taste for sure.
Cathy Kennedy
Melody,
Thanks for sharing Shoots and Ladders with me. I went over to YT to listen to it. You’re right to say they are unique and certainly a style that has to grow on you. It’s not something that grabs me to want to hear more. lol I did enjoy the first 30 seconds of the song, just past the bagpipes playing. 🙂
Mary B
Very creative. As someone with Scottish ancestry, I would have ruled out bagpipes as unique – because I hear them all the time it seems. But who knew so many bands utilized them? Great selection.
Cathy Kennedy
Mary,
My family has Irish/Scottish roots, too. My hearing issues limit what I can hear this is one reason why I went this route in mewsic picks because I know the distinct sound of the instrument but like you I was amazed to find out how many groups used them.
messymimi's meanderings
Kitty’s blues, that’s great. Maybe he needs to play the song backward like a country music song and get everything back.
Great playlist, and Mozart certainly was talented enough to ignore both praise and criticism and write what he wanted.
Cathy Kennedy
Mimi,
Yeah, maybe the kitty needs to do just that. lol I always imagined artists did just that…write what he/she wants. Whether or not they listen to what others say about their work is another story. I wonder how Mozart ignored what the public had to say about his work. He was a mewsical genius and most geniuses are a bit quirky.
-Eugenia
I am wowed by this post, Cathy! I love the sound of bagpipes and had no idea they were in so many songs.
Cathy Kennedy
Eugenia,
I’m glad you enjoyed it. I’ve always liked the bagpipes and it was a huge surprise to find so many rock artists who incorporated the sound into their songs.
Comedy Plus
Love the kitty. That’s a huge awww.
Can’t play the video as it’s not allowed in this country. Bugger. I even tried to see it on YouTube.
Have a purrfect Awww Monday and week, Cathy. Love you. ♥
Cathy Kennedy
Sandee,
Dang! I hate when my YT clips won’t play. I did change the first one on my playlist. Was that the problem or was it the whole playlist not playing? If nothing else you can see my list of song choices below the video. Thanks for popping by all the same and for letting me know.
John Holton
Did you change things here? Your site looks different.
Speaking from experience (I played the pipes for about four years, with a competition-level band no less), the bagpipes are harder to play than they look. You picked some good ones here, although one of the MG’s blocked the first one. Glen Campbell played the pipes, too, and he was good at them.
John Holton
Never mind: your site is back to normal. For some reason, the right-hand column hadn’t loaded and everything was wide.
Cathy Kennedy
👍🏻
Cathy Kennedy
John,
No, I didn’t change anything. It could be my host site is doing something. Occasionally I’ll get notices that my blog isn’t loading properly. I guess I need to do a bit of investigating. Thanks for letting me know that one of my clips was blocked. I fixed it. I’ve heard that the bagpipes are hard to play. Years ago when I worked, there was a guy who stood outside an apartment building in the late afternoon playing his bagpipes. I forget now why he did it but it was the neatest thing ever.
John Holton
I think I worked on a practice chanter, a small replica of the melody pipe, for close to a year learning the fingering and all the grace note patterns (of which there are many) before they even had me play the full pipes. There are four reeds in the pipes, one in the chanter and three drone reeds, one in each of the drones, and you have to keep all four going steadily… I still have nightmares…
Cathy Kennedy
John,
I probably knew at one time that bagpipes is a reed instrument but I don’t recall it having four. Geez, that’s a lot! It surely makes me appreciate the skill sets of bagpiping all the more. What prompted you to want to learn?
John Holton
Mary and I took a belated honeymoon to Scotland and England. We were on The Royal Mile in Edinburgh and walked past J&R Glen, bagpipe makers. Next thing you know, I was walking out with a set of bagpipes, a practice chanter, and “Logan’s Tutor for the Great Highland Bagpipes.” And the rest is history…
Cathy Kennedy
John,
So that’s how it all started. I love the story! Thanks for sharing it with me. 🙂
allstarme
One of my fave AC/DC songs and one I almost picked.
Cathy Kennedy
Claire,
I’m not very familiar with AC/DC mewsic and this is one I didn’t know. The one thing about this mewsic hop is you do get a bit of an education with the themes and by listening to what others bring to the dance floor. I love it!
Patrick Weseman
Very nice and wonderful music choices. Thanks for sharing them.
Cathy Kennedy
Patrick,
Thank you for joining me on the dance floor!
Jacqui Murray
Very creative, Cathy. I once attended a concert by the San Diego Symphony that was performed entirely by percussion. What an experience.
Cathy Kennedy
Jacqui,
A percussion concert…now that sounds interesting.Hmmm, I’d like to hear sample of such mewsic. BRB…okay, I found a YT percussion of performance of ‘Thunderstruck’ with a bit of comic relief. Stick with the performance to enjoy. 😉
This is a fun video and I certainly appreciated you piquing my interest to discover the above video. I used another an all instrumental version of this song in 2014 for the A to Z Challenge by 2Cellos which is pAwesome.
Michele Morin
Such a funny cat meme!
Cathy Kennedy
Michele,
When I saw this cat meme, I knew it was the purrfect choice for sharing not only with Awww Mondays but my boogieing partners and Inspire Me Mondays friends.Thanks for stopping by for a visit, my dear!
15andmeowing
Wonderful spark and great music choices. You found a lot of songs with unusual instruments. Thanks for hosting. XO
Cathy Kennedy
Ellen,
Thanks for stopping by to enjoy my song picks. I don’t really think of bagpipes are unusual as I do different, especially in rock mewsic. I had no idea the songs I selected used bagpipes until I asked Google. It was a fun, cool discovery.