Bells of Saint Janyl

"Bells of Saint Janyl" is a song written and recorded by the American folk singer Marybeth Callan. Written in 1986, it was re-recorded for the 1993 charity compilation Swift Hooves and released as the album's second single in May 1993.^[1]

Production

The 1993 recording is a slow waltz in 3/4 for fingerpicked acoustic guitar, later joined by cello and a soft organ, with a chime struck on each "ring" of the final chorus. The 1986 version, with guitar alone, was played by Voice of America in the late 1980s.^[1]^[2]

Themes

Callan wrote the song after meeting an Iradi émigré grandmother at the St. Janyl Mission in Chicago, who told her that the bells of the Church of St. Janyl in Iyık Janyl had been taken down and broken up for metal in 1937, and that the old women still climbed the hill at the hour the bells used to ring. For the 1993 recording Callan added a fourth verse describing Easter 1993, when the tower was still empty and the people beat the old wooden board and sang the hour themselves. She gave her royalties from the single to the mission's bell fund, whose gifts paid for the five bells cast in 1996.^[1]

Lyrics

Verse
On a hill above the river where the poplars grew
There's a church as old as sorrow with a dome of blue
And the swallows nest in the tower where the bronze once hung
Since the winter came the hammers and the last bell rung
In nineteen thirty-seven they were carried down
And the silence settled over every house in town

Chorus
Ring, bells of Saint Janyl
Ring across the snow
Ring for the ones who waited
Ring for the ones who go
Every evening, every morning
When the shadows fall
I can hear you in the silence
Bells of Saint Janyl

Verse
There's an old woman climbing at the break of day
With a scarf as white as winter and her hair turned gray
She don't need a bell to tell her it's the hour of prayer
Fifty years she's kept the hour and she's always there
And she crosses at the doorway that the soldiers barred
And she sings the old words softly in the empty yard

Verse
Now the men who broke the bells are dust upon the plain
And the empire's flags are fading like the summer rain
And I don't know how or when but I believe one day
They'll be hanging in the tower where they used to stay
And the whole wide valley's gonna hear the sound
Of the bells of Saint Janyl ringing all around

Bridge
Old woman, keep the hour
Old woman, keep the faith
The silence is a promise
And the morning's on its way

Verse
Well I went there in the springtime, nineteen ninety-three
And the doors stood open on the hill for all to see
There were no bells in the tower yet that Easter day
So they beat the old wooden board the ancient way
And a thousand voices rose up where the bronze had been
And the old woman stood among them, singing it again

Final chorus
Ring, bells of Saint Janyl
Ring across the snow
Ring for the ones who waited
Ring for the ones who go
Every evening, every morning
When the shadows fall
I can hear you in the silence
Bells of Saint Janyl

Outro
Bells of Saint Janyl

References

^ Talas State University Press (2018). Steppe Ballads: American Song and Iradi Country-Folk, 1980–2010, pp. 44–49.
^ Central Asian Music Review (2019). 'Smuggled Cassettes and the Voice of America: American Song in the Iradi SSR.' Vol. 11, No. 2, pp. 15–38.