The Moon Shines Bright feat. Elizabeth Fraser, produced by Bernard Butler, taken from the new album, 'Old Wow', out now: slee.lnk.to/OldWow
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Credits:
Director: Conor Gorman
Producer: Diāna Āboliņa
Director of Photography: George Allen
Editor: Alicja Rymarowicz
Colour Grader: Anna Barsukova
Sound Engineer: Nicholas O’Brien for Upcycled Sounds
Piano: James Keay
Violin: Joseph O’Keefe
Bass: Misha Mullov-Abbado
Percussion: Josh Green
Lyrics:
The moon shines bright
And the stars give a light
In a little while it will be day
The voice of love it calls upon us all
And bids us awake and pray
Rise, arise wake thee arise
Life she is calling thee
For it might be the mothering of your sweet soul
If you open your eyes and see
That the life of a man it comes with little plan
It flourishes like a flower
As tender in the heart into which you’re born
So cherish your every hour
For the summertime has come
And the trees are sweetly blooming
And the wild mountain thyme
Grows around the blooming heather
Will you go, lassie go,
And we’ll all go together
To pull wild mountain Thyme
All around the blooming heather
For our time is not long
Time’s an old folk song
No longer can we stay
Those that remember say
Blessed are you all
Who make it through this brawl
Long life and another good year
Blessed are you all
Who answer to the call
Long life and another good year
Long life and another good year
The moon shines bright
And the stars will be our height
Life she is calling thee
Rise, arise wake thee arise
And ever more watchful be
This adaptation of the ancient traditional folk song The Moon Shines Bright came as a ‘gift’ from Sam's good friend, the 93-year-old English Gypsy, Freda Black, who offered him a song to take on pilgrimage. It is also influenced by a Zuni prayer for greeting the sunrise and encouraging us to experience wonder in the here and now. This meaningful and pertinent track weaves together ‘messages of devotion from different lands to communicate the impermanence of life and the importance of recognising the sacred’.

Elizabeth Fraser’s (Cocteau Twins) vocals inject a haunting reminder into The Moon Shines Bright of the beauty and fragility of life, using a fragment of lyrics from a traditional Scottish folk song ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’.

Sam says ‘To me, the song is about the importance of being connected. In a time when religion and faith are in question in our western lives, its simplicity of form brings us back to the bare bones of essential life experience and is a call for us to pay attention to the bigger things in this world; “for our time is not long, time’s an old folksong”.
The Moon Shines Bright track is ‘a gentle yet potent wake up call to recognise the beauty of life in its purest form’.
#OldWow #TheMoonShinesBright #SamLeeMusic