"Da Slockit Light"

No personal notes.

From The Fiddler's Companion;

SLOCKIT LIGHT, DA. Shetland, Air (4/4 time). D Major. Standard. AAB. One of the best-known tunes composed by the late Shetland fiddler, collector and teacher Tom Anderson.

"I was coming out of Eshaness in late January, 1969, the time was after 11 pm and as I looked back at the top of the hill leading out of the district I saw so few lights compared to what I remembered when I was young. As I watched, the lights started going out one by one. That, coupled with the recent death of my late wife, made me think of the old word 'Slockit', meaning, a light that has gone out, and I think that was what inspired the tune" (Anderson, 1983).

The Shetlands have been much influenced by Scandinavia, and retains many traces of that culture. In Swedish, the word "slacka" means to quench or turn off, and is related to the English word "slacken." Fiddler Ellen Gawler was a student of Anderson's and (in a posting to Fiddle-L 11/06/05) wrote:

The tune was written by Tom Anderson shortly after his wife died. To slockit da light means to snuff out the light. Tommie took me to the spot where he composed the tune. The inspiration for the tune came from one night when he visited the part of Shetland where he grew up called Easha Ness, which is to the north and west of Lerwick on the main island of Shetland. In Sheltand there are no trees, so aw he was looking out over the valley he noticed that many of the homes that had been all illuminated when he was young were now dark. So many people had moved to Lerwick to work for BP. He was lamenting all the losses in the changes in his life, with his wife passing and with the changes in Shetland. He was a man who was very tuned into the culture through the music and all that goes with it. The oil company had brought about many difficulties for the Shetlanders. As he saw it, they had lost their traditional way of life an had forgotten how to survive in the way that they had for thousands of years. Sure, BP had brought employment, but there were more social problems as people lost their sense of community and their meaningfulness and place in their society.

As he looked out over Easha Ness that night, he felt like the lights were going out. The part of the tune where there is a descending scale are the lights going out. On that night, he told me that the tune came to him and he wrote it down in so fa on the only thing that he had to write on; an empty match book case that had all the matches torn out of it. I'll never forget that part of it because that is how his life was. Things had multiple meaning for him.

Anderson (Ringing Strings), 1983; pp. 20-21 (includes harmony part). Culburnie CUL121D, Alasdair Frase & Natalie Haas - "Fire and Grace" (2004). Green Linnet SIF-1084, Eugene O'Donnell - "The Foggy Dew" (1988. Learned from Aly Bain). Rounder Records, Norman Blake - "The Rising Fawn String Ensemble" (1979).

From The Session;

As with so many other words in Shetland this is a Scandinavian word and as Michael suggests it means a light that is turned out, quenched or extinguished. I have never ever thought about the fact that there is no synonymous word in Standard English. For me, as a Swede, it's always funny with the Shetland tongue, 'cos it is most often self explanatory, from a Scandinavian point of view (and as a fact there are many words in Scots as well that are closer to Scandinavian tongues than to Standard English)

We heard this tune played by Walt Michael - a hmmer dulcimer player from the States - at Sidmouth at couple of years back. He toldusthat when Tom Anderson died this tune was played at his funeral and now if you play this tune in the Shetland Islands people stand. I don't know if this is true but it struck a chord wih us and our friend turned to us and said "you can play that at my funeral". A year later when he died suddenly at the age of 48 his son remembered this and it was played on Uillean pipes during the service. It's nce to hear that other people held this tune in the same way as the first comment shows.

Rather than the idea of this as a reel or a 'slow air', though the latter is closer, I have always heard it, including the playing of the composer, as more like a slow march. As you can imagine, "The Slockit Light", and the meaning, a light extinguished or turned out, it has also featured at funerals. It is a beautiful tune and I've been known to shed a few tears playing it... Tom Anderson was a musician and a magician... On second parts, one of the publications featuring Tom's tunes has a second part written out. I'll see if I can find it. I also remember a second part by that fine American fiddler and fiddle teacher Pam Swing. I'll see if I can find these things here and return with the specifics.

"Ringing Strings:Traditional Shetland Music and Dance" Tom Anderson Shetland Times Ltd., 1983 ISBN: 0 900662 40 9 20 - Da Slockit Light 21 - Da Slockit Light Second Fiddle "Traditional Shetland music and dance. Tunes old and new collected together by the late Tom Anderson, the well respected fiddle player and teacher from Shetland. Published in 1983 it has become an important collection of Shetland tunes and dances."

Here's Tom himself playing it https://youtu.be/Xq5JBSu5tqY?t=2m46