We have the pleasure in sharing with you a new video from London-based trio Teyr (Dominic Henderson, James Gavin, Tommie Black-Roff). The video was animated by Sasha Balan who has perfectly captured the sentiment of Nothing Grows. The song is taken from their debut album Far from the Tree which was a Featured Album of the Month on Folk Radio UK. In his review of the album Neil mentioned how the band’s melody on this song seems to take the structure of the verse itself as the raw material with which to weave something exceptional. It’s also our Song of the Day.
Tommie Black-Roff shared the following on the song:
Travelling through Ireland in late summer we stopped off in Fermanagh, lake county, for a house concert in the kitchen of Maggie and Stephen Muldoon. Aside from being wonderful humans they are also lovers of music and words. This song grew from the kernel of Stephen’s beautiful poetry, in particular, a set of five stanzas about growth and memory. Here’s what he had to say:
I guess when I wrote the words the main thing I had in mind was that nothing happens in a vacuum. If you want something to happen you have to make it so and start somewhere, no matter how great the challenges seem to be. The words relate also to the lives and memory of a few of the good people that I was privileged to know, who may now be gone – in the physical sense anyway, but who made such a positive contribution to life when on this earth; nothing grows where nothing’s been.
Lyrics to Nothing Grows:
Apple grows on apple tree
Mighty oak from bird dropped seed
Chestnut, conker, king of nine
Swinging pendulum piece of twine
Nothing grows where nothings been
Nothing grows where nothings been
Willow slipped, to multiply
woven basket, turf supply
Mountain, ash, rowan berry
Gone you, the flowering cherry
And nothing grows where nothings been
Nothing grows where nothings been
Seed, sapling, branch, the tree
life-cycle, legacy
Seed, sapling, branch, the tree
life-cycle, legacy
Nothing grows where nothings been
Nothing grows where nothings been
TEYR Summer Tour
15/07 Prema Arts Centre, Uley
22/07 Faversham Nautifest, Kent
23/07 House Concert, Bourgogne
25/07 Salle Jules Ferry, Lauzun
27/07 Le Souleilla, Ariège
29/07 Maison Fermat, Beaumont de Lomagne
11/08 Broadstairs Folk Week, Kent – *
17/08 St Mary’s Music Hall, London **
18/08 Solomon Browne Hall, Mousehole
20/08 Square & Compass, Purbeck
With *Dallahan & Faustus **Martha Tilston
