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"This is another rare treat: a debut CD of traditional music by a lineup of suberb musicians that offers something unique... The music is a mix of traditional Appalachian, Yiddish, Celtic, and French-Canadian songs and instrumentals... It all works wonderfully well together. Caridwen is a phenomenal lead vocalist and the musicianship is outstanding. For those of you who enjoy traditional music as well as bluegrass, treat yourself to this great initial outing from Mighty Squirrel." — Kate Bailey, Bluegrass Beacon

"There’s more than enough variety to hold my interest, and every song is connected to each other by performance, instrumentation, and passion. And really, it’s the passion that shines through in each song.... All in all, this is an outstanding debut recording from a new group and a completely fun listen." —Audiophile Audition

About the CD:

Grinding Grain: We adapted and compressed this old English ballad from a recording by Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick. Cut about 20 extraneous verses. And added the banjo. Took out the penny whistle. We especially liked how the lyrics set the stage for the cannibalism and death themes for the whole CD project (see also: Lady Franklin’s Dream and We Will Have Our Day).

Squirrel Hunters: We learned this from a John Hartford recording and took an instant liking to it, not just for its catchy title with the obvious band name tie-in. A later Google search revealed for us that “squirrel hunter” is actually a term for certain Civil War militia who volunteered for the Union. As one source explains, "They call them Squirrel Hunters, farm boys that never had to shoot at the same squirrel twice." Thanks to Don and Cyndi Cutler for scanning the Squirrel Hunter document for us.

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Belle Hirondelle: Origins - This is a French-Canadian song of European descent, collected by Marius Barbeau, we think. We're not sure how old it is; most likely it goes back to about the 1600s—some of the lyrics mention parts of a sailing ship which would date it to pre-steamer days anyway, and certainly pre-telegraph. The story: “Belle hirondelle” means "pretty swallow," and in the song there’s this woman whose lover is away at sea, so she sends a swallow to tell him how much she's missing him. The swallow finds Alexis (sailor/lover) in the crow's nest on board his ship and in this way they exchange messages. Sort of like in the Verizon ad. The song is also sometimes referred to as Ah, Toi.

Abi Gezunt: Origins - This song is from the Yiddish music halls of the 30's and 40's, lyrics by Molly Picon, music by Abram Ellstein. Many years ago, well, not quite 100 years ago anyway, in NYC there was a thriving Klezmer music scene, as well as Yiddish language newspapers, etc. Abram Ellstein was responsible for many catchy melodies and was probably one of the most prolific songwriters in this genre. Abi Gezunt is one of his more popular numbers. The story: basically Abi Gezunt tells us to drink, be happy, be thankful for what you have and always look on the bright side. The gist of it is, "With your health, anybody is lucky." Kind of the Jewish take on Keep on the Sunny Side.

Seneca Square Dance: An old American tune of mysterious origins, given a fresh down tempo treatment here. It was recorded by Ry Cooder, among others, though our rendering is, to our knowledge, a Mighty Squirrel original.

We Will Have Our Day: Dave wrote this one after hearing a lot of old-time music at the British Columbia Bluegrass Workshop one summer. He wanted to write something with an old-timey modal flavor, everyone playing the melody together all the time, or at least a lot. His musical partner, Nova Devonie, helped him to develop and cut the cheerful death row lyrics to size. We sometimes call this one "We Will Have Our Dave."

Lady Franklin's Dream: The melody is very old—probably many hundreds of years old, probably from Ireland. Some learned music folk connect it with the tune "The Croppy Boy" (which has other names as well – but does anyone care?) The words come from a broadside, probably from around 1860 or so. The story: Lord John Franklin (Greg’s great great great uncle on his mother's side) went to seek the Northwest Passage in 1842 and died along with all of his crew. It was a horrible and tragic ordeal. Though the ships were outfitted with every imaginable innovation and modern convenience, they sailed into the worst 4 years of snow and cold on record for many hundreds of years. Frozen in, they abandoned ship and gradually all died on King William Island, one of the world’s most inhospitable places, though some of them managed to survive as long as six years on tinned provisions, fish, shoe laces, rocks, and the intestines of their compadres. Lady Franklin was a celebrity in her day for mounting countless search expeditions and spending the equivalent of millions of dollars, trying to find any last clue of her lost husband. People tended to romanticize her and her longing quite a bit (as in this song), but the truth is probably that she had a number of motives for trying so hard to find her husband; most of all, maybe, she wanted to ensure that he had an honorable place in history. The remains of the crew that were eventually found (thanks to Lady Jane) showed that the Franklin had died fairly early on, like in the second year or so, and that the crewmen had suffered from scurvy and lead poisoning (from their fancy new tinned provisions) and cold (of course)…and the evidence of cannibalism is, well, sadly, unmistakable. All in all, a grim story. The good news is that they did find the NW passage. They just died doing it.

Gas Nigun: This Klezmer tune Caridwen learned from a friend who informed her that a "Nigun" is an ecstatic dance. "Gas" means street or road. So this would be an ecstatic street dance. Since then we’ve also learned that a Nigun is, generally, a Chassidic humming song—a wordless tune usually sung in large-ish groups with meaningless words like "ai-aai-ai-aa" or "bee-bee-bim-bim-bim." The aim of this group Chassidic humming-singing activity is to achieve a transcendent method of communicating soul to soul (minus any birds – apparently they didn’t have them, or maybe the birds didn’t speak Yiddish). So, again, a kind of ecstasy -- maybe religious ecstasy.

Leather Winged Bat: Another old American tune, sung by the likes of Pete Seeger and many others, including Greg’s mom. This was actually the first song Mighty Squirrel ever played together. You might say it set the tone for the rest of the recording, with its themes of unrequited love and talking critters and so on.

Midnight on The Water: A Benny Thommason original. Need we say more? The tribal triple fiddle arrangement is all our own. Think of it as an aquatic fiddle Nigun.