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about

This song provided Merlyn with the creative spark that brought the album project to life. The lyrics explore his memories of curlews calling out in the ‘simmerdim’ - the night-long twilight found in the Northern Isles around midsummer, and their annual movements from the coast to their inland nesting grounds and back.

The song also touches upon elements of curlew folklore.

“As well as reflecting the seasonal cycles of life, death and song that I associate with curlews, I wanted to turn the folktale of the ‘Seven Whistlers’
- in which the sound of curlews is seen as a bad omen - on its head. In ‘Simmerdim’, the Seven Whistlers are welcoming rather than foreboding,
offering a pathway to peace and introspection, as Seamus Heaney hinted at with the sound of “a curlew high above the runway” in his poem,
‘From the Republic of Conscience’, which he set in Orkney.”

– Merlyn Driver

Composed by Merlyn Driver
Performed by Merlyn Driver (vocals, guitar),
Nathan Riki Thomson (prepared upright bass)
Mixed by Mikko H. Haapoja

lyrics

Lyrics

Well I heard the curlew was a bad omen
And I’ve rarely heard a stranger thing
For there’s a path that opens through conscience
When they’re calling out, caught in the simmerdim
And this time of year I miss the feeling
The nights were once sure to bring
When I’d lie awake with the windows open
With an urge to set out and take their voices in
And sure, there’s a part that’s haunting
How the past finds ways back in
But it’s just how life recycles
From the marshes they rise again
And their songs swim towards the surface
And bubble up over the brim
But sounds live on after sounding
And ideas aren’t bound by the skin
And soon the fields again fall silent
And the Devil’s Bit starts setting in
Before the dark unrolls
I start to long for the simmerdim
And high above the runway
You’ll hear the seven whistlers welcoming
Return to cycles of simmerdim

credits

released April 15, 2022

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Curlew Sounds UK

Simmerdim: Curlew Sounds’ is an album project for curlews, created by Merlyn Driver in partnership with the RSPB. Proceeds directly support the RSPB’s Curlew Recovery Programme


Twitter: @curlewsounds

Instagram: @curlewsounds

rspb.org.uk/curlewsounds

www.curlewsoundsproject.org
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