Meet Me by the Moonlight is a traditional folksong that Annie has adapted and changed to include new music and a more upbeat story line. This ballad is a conversation between two lovers, one of whom is about to go to sea.
On Safe from Harm, Annie has written new words to the traditional celtic ballad "Fear A'Bhata". She wrote this song as a lullaby for children facing violence and terror in our world today. In 2002 many children were afraid to go to sleep because of sniper attacks in the D.C. area. It is dedicated to one of her nieces who lived in the DC area during that period.
The Patterson family farm, in McConnellsburg, PA, was the site of the last Confederate bivouac. This family history inspired Annie's interpretation of the Civil War song, Cruel War.
Annie stays with this war theme with the a' capella lament, Bonnie Light Horseman; the words were written during the Napoleonic Wars to a much older Irish melody.
Being true to her love of old timey music, Annie plays her Washburn banjo on Shady Grove and Red Rocking Chair, two favorite tunes that she learned when she was in college in Pittsburgh, PA.
Two more tunes from the Appalachian Mountains include a relatively unknown version of Who's Going to Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot? collected by John Jacob Niles and a lovely version of Watts' Cradle Song that Annie originally learned from a recording by Doc Watson.
Also included is a fresh rendering of Woody Guthrie's classic, Pastures of Plenty, Jean Ritchie's haunting plea to care for the earth, Now Is the Cool of the Day (based on Chapter 3 of Genesis), and an unusually tender Child ballad called The Pale Ring.
The album concludes with a beautiful round taught to us by the talented composer Ben Newman during a workshop we led at Pendle Hill. It is setting of the poem Creation of Eä from Ursula LeGuin's well-known fantasy novel A Wizard of Earthsea:
