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The mission of the KelticDead Music initiative is to find tunes and songs from around the world that have

Celtic, Folk, World, Americana, and Seafaring origins, and arrange them into simple sheet music formats for folk

musicians to use, as well as provide links for the music that follows the arrangements to help in hearing how it

can be played. In addition, other links are provided for the stories and possible lyrics about the selections within

video-based, KDM Broadsides for a music-education experience.

All the selections and sheet music content provided in the KelticDead Music initiative are from traditional,

made-public, made-public with credits, or cited credits where applicable. This material content is given with

permissions. Patrick O. Young, KelticDead Music.

Battle of the Somme

The melody of Battle of the

Somme was written by the

Pipe Major, William Lawrie,

at Oxford, as a “piper’s

retreat” tune from the field

after a band performance.

William died in 1916 in the

same year in which a battle

was engaged in World War I

which became known as the

most fierce and costly battle

in terms of human life.

Made public picture. Battle of the Somme Guns.

The melody was later dedicated to those that died in that battle,

and as a folk tune, it was quite popular within Celtic music circles.

The battle started on July 1^st1916 as an Allied offensive against

German forces along the western front of the war. It was located

near a river in France called the Somme River.

The Allied British and French armies initially engaged the German

forces with 1.75 million rounds of field artillery in an effort to take

out the already entrenched German bunkers, as well as mitigate

the barbed wire that lay between the two lines.

Unfortunately, for the allied forces, more than half of the

ammunition fired that day did not explode leaving most of the

German defenses in tact and operational.

When the Allied call to advance was made, the British forces walked

out into murderous machinegun fire suffering more than 57,000

wounded casualties on that first day alone with more than 19,000

soldiers killed. The French soldiers were positioned south, along a

weaker front, and managed to advance about 1.5 miles.

Continued …

KelticDead Music