“McSweeney’s One-Cent Lament” was inspired in part by “Caledonia’s Wail for Neil Gow, Her Favourite Minstrel” by Capt. Fraser, which Barbara learned from Jordi Savall’s The Celtic Viol.  Rose Marie McSweeney is one of the two grandmothers Barbara never met, but Rose Marie appears from time to give a tune.

“Lament of the Books” is one of the names for a beautiful traditional tune given to us by Martin Langford at the first Music Camp on the Canal in St. Peter’s, Nova Scotia in June 2012.  “The Lonely Lark of Central Park” is Barbara’s recomposition of “The Lovely Lass of Inverness,” which she learned from Beethoven’s Scottish Folk Song settings; she took out the Beethoven and made it folk-like again.

This is an excerpt from the St. Peter’s Pennies set, which was commissioned by Kitchen Rackets from the second Music Camp on the Canal in June 2013.  Barbara was asked to write a tune for all camp participants—from age six to sixty, beginner to professional, from banjo to fiddle to bodhrán.  Sad about the simultaneous demise of the Canadian penny, she wrote a simple tune, with only five notes.  Perhaps together they make a nickel.