The Sinking of the Lusitania (Winsor McCay, 1918) @UnderTheSpreadingOakTree

Under the Spreading Oak Tree The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) is a silent animated short film by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. It is a work of propaganda re-creating the never-photographed 1915 sinking of the British liner RMS Lusitania. At twelve minutes it has been called the longest work of animation at the time of its release. The film is the earliest surviving animated documentary and serious, dramatic work of animation.

In 1915 a German submarine torpedoed and sank the RMS Lusitania; 128 Americans were among the 1,198 dead. The event outraged McCay, but the newspapers of his employer William Randolph Hearst downplayed the event, as Hearst was opposed to the US joining World War I. McCay was required to illustrate anti-war and anti-British editorial cartoons for Hearst's papers. In 1916, McCay rebelled against his employer's stance and began work on the patriotic Sinking of the Lusitania on his own time with his own money.

The film followed McCay's earlier successes in animation: Little Nemo (1911), How a Mosquito Operates (1912), and Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). McCay drew these earlier films on rice paper, onto which backgrounds had to be laboriously traced; The Sinking of the Lusitania was the first film McCay made using the new, more efficient cel technology. McCay and his assistants spent twenty-two months making the film. His subsequent animation output suffered setbacks, as the film was not as commercially successful as his earlier efforts, and Hearst put increased pressure on McCay to devote his time to editorial drawings.
‒Wikipedia

Music:
Johannes Brahms ‒ Tragic Overture (Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Musopen)

updated 8 years ago

The Sinking of the Lusitania (Winsor McCay, 1918)

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2018-08-26 | The Sinking of the Lusitania (1918) is a silent animated short film by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. It is a work of propaganda re-creating the never-photographed 1915 sinking of the British liner RMS Lusitania. At twelve minutes it has been called the longest work of animation at the time of its release. The film is the earliest surviving animated documentary and serious, dramatic work of animation.

In 1915 a German submarine torpedoed and sank the RMS Lusitania; 128 Americans were among the 1,198 dead. The event outraged McCay, but the newspapers of his employer William Randolph Hearst downplayed the event, as Hearst was opposed to the US joining World War I. McCay was required to illustrate anti-war and anti-British editorial cartoons for Hearst's papers. In 1916, McCay rebelled against his employer's stance and began work on the patriotic Sinking of the Lusitania on his own time with his own money.

The film followed McCay's earlier successes in animation: Little Nemo (1911), How a Mosquito Operates (1912), and Gertie the Dinosaur (1914). McCay drew these earlier films on rice paper, onto which backgrounds had to be laboriously traced; The Sinking of the Lusitania was the first film McCay made using the new, more efficient cel technology. McCay and his assistants spent twenty-two months making the film. His subsequent animation output suffered setbacks, as the film was not as commercially successful as his earlier efforts, and Hearst put increased pressure on McCay to devote his time to editorial drawings.
‒Wikipedia

Music:
Johannes Brahms ‒ Tragic Overture (Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Musopen)

The Ballad of Moll Magee by W. B. Yeats (poem set to music • A.I. • alternative rock)

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2025-04-26 | Alternative rock rendition of "The Ballad of Moll Magee" a poem by W. B. Yeats, published in his 1889 collection Crossways.

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Turn on subtitles for lyrics.
Music created with Udio.
Image created with DALL·E 3.

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Lyrics:

Come round me, little childer;
There, don't fling stones at me
Because I mutter as I go;
But pity Moll Magee.

My man was a poor fisher
With shore lines in the say;
My work was saltin' herrings
The whole of the long day.

And sometimes from the saltin' shed,
I scarce could drag my feet
Under the blessed moonlight,
Along the pebbly street.

I'd always been but weakly,
And my baby was just born;
A neighbour minded her by day
I minded her till morn.

I lay upon my baby;
Ye little childer dear,
I looked on my cold baby
When the morn grew frosty and clear.

A weary woman sleeps so hard!
My man grew red and pale,
And gave me money, and bade me go
To my own place, Kinsale.

He drove me out and shut the door,
And gave his curse to me;
I went away in silence,
No neighbour could I see.

The windows and the doors were shut,
One star shone faint and green
The little straws were turnin' round
Across the bare boreen.

I went away in silence:
Beyond old Martin's byre
I saw a kindly neighbour
Blowin' her mornin' fire.

She drew from me my story—
My money's all used up,
And still, with pityin', scornin' eye,
She gives me bite and sup.

She says my man will surely come,
And fetch me home agin;
But always, as I'm movin' round,
Without doors or within,

Pilin' the wood or pilin' the turf,
Or goin' to the well,
I'm thinkin' of my baby
And keenin' to mysel'.

And sometimes I am sure she knows
When, openin' wide His door,
God lights the stars, His candles,
And looks upon the poor.

So now, ye little childer,
Ye won't fling stones at me;
But gather with your shinin' looks
And pity Moll Magee.

#wbyeats #poetry #alternativerock #altrock

The Sad Shepherd by W. B. Yeats (poem set to music • A.I. • art rock)

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2025-02-12 | Art rock rendition of "The Sad Shepherd" a poem by W. B. Yeats, published in his 1889 collection The Wanderings of Oisín and Other Poems.

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Turn on subtitles for lyrics.
Music created with Udio.
Image created with starryai.

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Lyrics:

There was a man whom Sorrow named his Friend,
And he, of his high comrade Sorrow dreaming,
Went walking with slow steps along the gleaming
And humming Sands, where windy surges wend:
And he called loudly to the stars to bend
From their pale thrones and comfort him, but they
Among themselves laugh on and sing alway:
And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend
Cried out, Dim sea, hear my most piteous story.!
The sea Swept on and cried her old cry still,
Rolling along in dreams from hill to hill.
He fled the persecution of her glory
And, in a far-off, gentle valley stopping,
Cried all his story to the dewdrops glistening.
But naught they heard, for they are always listening,
The dewdrops, for the sound of their own dropping.
And then the man whom Sorrow named his friend
Sought once again the shore, and found a shell,
And thought, I will my heavy story tell
Till my own words, re-echoing, shall send
Their sadness through a hollow, pearly heart;
And my own talc again for me shall sing,
And my own whispering words be comforting,
And lo! my ancient burden may depart.
Then he sang softly nigh the pearly rim;
But the sad dweller by the sea-ways lone
Changed all he sang to inarticulate moan
Among her wildering whirls, forgetting him.

#wbyeats #poetry #progrock #progressiverock #artrock

To an Isle in the Water by W. B. Yeats • poem set to music • R&B funk • A.I.

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2025-02-03 | Prince-inspired rendition of W. B. Yeats' short romantic poem "To an Isle in the Water".

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Turn on subtitles for lyrics.
Music created with Udio.
Image created with DALL·E 3.

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Lyrics:

Shy one, shy one,
Shy one of my heart,
She moves in the firelight
Pensively apart.

She carries in the dishes,
And lays them in a row.
To an isle in the water
With her would I go.

She carries in the candles,
And lights the curtained room,
Shy in the doorway
And shy in the gloom;

And shy as a rabbit,
Helpful and shy.
To an isle in the water
With her would I fly.

The Song of the Happy Shepherd by W. B. Yeats (poem set to music • A.I. • prog rock)

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2025-02-01 | Progressive rock rendition of "The Song of the Happy Shepherd", a poem by W. B. Yeats, published in his 1889 collection The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems. It reflects Yeats's early interest in mysticism and romantic idealism. The poem contrasts the timeless, imaginative world of poetry with the transient, materialistic concerns of modern society. The speaker, a shepherd, laments the decline of enchantment and wisdom in favour of factual knowledge, advocating instead for the enduring power of dreams and storytelling.

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Turn on subtitles for lyrics.
Music created with Udio.
Image created with Krea.

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Lyrics:

The woods of Arcady are dead,
And over is their antique joy;
Of old the world on dreaming fed;
Grey Truth is now her painted toy;
Yet still she turns her restless head:
But O, sick children of the world,
Of all the many changing things
In dreary dancing past us whirled,
To the cracked tune that Chronos sings,
Words alone are certain good.
Where are now the warring kings,
Word be-mockers? — By the Rood,
Where are now the warring kings?
An idle word is now their glory,
By the stammering schoolboy said,
Reading some entangled story:
The kings of the old time are dead;
The wandering earth herself may be
Only a sudden flaming word,
In clanging space a moment heard,
Troubling the endless reverie.

Then nowise worship dusty deeds,
Nor seek, for this is also sooth,
To hunger fiercely after truth,
Lest all thy toiling only breeds
New dreams, new dreams; there is no truth
Saving in thine own heart. Seek, then,
No learning from the starry men,
Who follow with the optic glass
The whirling ways of stars that pass—
Seek, then, for this is also sooth,
No word of theirs— the cold star-bane
Has cloven and rent their hearts in twain,
And dead is all their human truth.
Go gather by the humming sea
Some twisted, echo-harbouring shell.
And to its lips thy story tell,
And they thy comforters will be.
Rewording in melodious guile
Thy fretful words a little while,
Till they shall singing fade in ruth
And die a pearly brotherhood;
For words alone are certain good:
Sing, then, for this is also sooth.

I must be gone: there is a grave
Where daffodil and lily wave,
And I would please the hapless faun,
Buried under the sleepy ground,
With mirthful songs before the dawn.
His shouting days with mirth were crowned;
And still I dream he treads the lawn,
Walking ghostly in the dew,
Pierced by my glad singing through,
My songs of old earth’s dreamy youth:
But ah! she dreams not now; dream thou!
For fair are poppies on the brow:
Dream, dream, for this is also sooth.

#wbyeats #poetry #progrock #progressiverock

The Falling of the Leaves by W. B. Yeats (poem set to music) #poetry #wbyeats #music

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2025-01-13 | ...

Fergus and the Druid by W. B. Yeats (heavy metal)

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2025-01-08 | Symphonic metal rendition of W. B. Yeats' poem “Fergus and the Druid” (1892). The poem is structured like a scene from a play. Drawing from the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology, it is a conversation between Fergus mac Róich and a druid with mystical powers. Fergus had been king of Ulster, but was manipulated by his wife Nessa into abdicating in favour of her son, Conchobar. In this poem, a disillusioned Fergus seeks to gain new insights from a druid, hoping to transcend his woes. What he finds is perhaps more curse than comfort.

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Turn on subtitles for lyrics.
Music created with Udio.
Image created with DALL·E 3.

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Lyrics:

Fergus
This whole day have I followed in the rocks,
And you have changed and flowed from shape to shape,
First as a raven on whose ancient wings
Scarcely a feather lingered, then you seemed
A weasel moving on from stone to stone,
And now at last you wear a human shape,
A thin grey man half lost in gathering night.

Druid
What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?

Fergus
This would I say, most wise of living souls:
Young subtle Conchubar sat close by me
When I gave judgment, and his words were wise,
And what to me was burden without end,
To him seemed easy, so I laid the crown
Upon his head to cast away my sorrow.

Druid
What would you, king of the proud Red Branch kings?

Fergus
A king and proud! and that is my despair.
I feast amid my people on the hill,
And pace the woods, and drive my chariot-wheels
In the white border of the murmuring sea;
And still I feel the crown upon my head.

Druid
What would you, Fergus?

Fergus
Be no more a king
But learn the dreaming wisdom that is yours.

Druid
Look on my thin grey hair and hollow cheeks
And on these hands that may not lift the sword,
This body trembling like a wind-blown reed.
No woman's loved me, no man sought my help.

Fergus
A king is but a foolish labourer
Who wastes his blood to be another's dream.

Druid
Take, if you must, this little bag of dreams;
Unloose the cord, and they will wrap you round.

Fergus
I See my life go drifting like a river
From change to change; I have been many things —
A green drop in the surge, a gleam of light
Upon a sword, a fir-tree on a hill,
An old slave grinding at a heavy quern,
A king sitting upon a chair of gold —
And all these things were wonderful and great;
But now I have grown nothing, knowing all.
Ah! Druid, Druid, how great webs of sorrow
Lay hidden in the small slate-coloured thing!

Text from CELT https://research.ucc.ie/celt/document/E890001-003.html

#wbyeats #poetry #metal #irishmythology

To the Rose upon the Rood of Time by W. B. Yeats (poem set to music)

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2024-12-29 | ...

The Cloak, the Boat and the Shoes by W. B. Yeats (poem set to music)

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2024-12-22 | ...

Song of the Faeries by W. B. Yeats (poem set to music)

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2024-12-15 | Immerse yourself in the enchanting world of faeries with this beautiful rendition of W. B. Yeats' timeless poem "Song of the Faeries." Set to music, this captivating video features a hauntingly melodic arrangement paired with gothic-inspired imagery of faeries.

Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more poetic music and visual creations!

#Yeats #poetry #fairy

The Owl and the Pussycat

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2023-06-26 | The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear. Read by Jannie Meisberger.

Gertie the Dinosaur (Winsor McCay, 1914)

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2018-07-24 | Gertie the Dinosaur is a 1914 animated short film by American cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay. It is the earliest animated film to feature a dinosaur. McCay first used the film before live audiences as an interactive part of his vaudeville act; the frisky, childlike Gertie did tricks at the command of her master. McCay's employer William Randolph Hearst later curtailed McCay's vaudeville activities, so McCay added a live-action introductory sequence to the film for its theatrical release. McCay abandoned a sequel, Gertie on Tour (c. 1921), after producing about a minute of footage.

Although Gertie is popularly thought to be the earliest animated film, McCay had earlier made Little Nemo (1911) and How a Mosquito Operates (1912). The American J. Stuart Blackton and the French Émile Cohl had experimented with animation even earlier; Gertie being a character with an appealing personality distinguished McCay's film from these earlier "trick films". Gertie was the first film to use animation techniques such as keyframes, registration marks, tracing paper, the Mutoscope action viewer, and animation loops. It influenced the next generation of animators such as the Fleischer brothers, Otto Messmer, Paul Terry, and Walt Disney. John Randolph Bray unsuccessfully tried to patent many of McCay's animation techniques and is said to have been behind a plagiarized version of Gertie that appeared a year or two after the original. Gertie is the best preserved of McCay's films—some of which have been lost or survive only in fragments—and has been preserved in the U.S. Library of Congress' National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
‒ Wikipedia

Music:
Beethoven ‒ Sonata No. 3 in C Major, Op. 2 No. 3 - I. Allegro con brio & IV. Allegro assai (Paul Pitman, Musopen)

How a Mosquito Operates (Winsor McCay, 1912) with sound

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2018-07-22 | How a Mosquito Operates (aka The Story of a Mosquito) is a silent animated film by American cartoonist Winsor McCay. The six-minute short depicts a giant mosquito tormenting a sleeping man. The film is one of the earliest works of animation, and its technical quality is considered far ahead of its contemporaries. It is also known under the titles The Story of a Mosquito and Winsor McCay and his Jersey Skeeters.

McCay had a reputation for his proficient drawing skills, best remembered in the elaborate cartooning of the children's comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland he began in 1905. He delved into the emerging art of animation with the film Little Nemo (1911), and followed its success by adapting an episode of his comic strip Dream of the Rarebit Fiend into How a Mosquito Operates. McCay gave the film a more coherent story and more developed characterization than in the Nemo film, with naturalistic timing, motion, and weight in the animation.

How a Mosquito Operates had an enthusiastic reception when McCay first showed it as part of his vaudeville act. He further developed the character animation he introduced in Mosquito with his best-known animated work, Gertie the Dinosaur (1914).
‒Wikipedia

Music:
Beethoven ‒ Sonata No. 17 in D minor, Op. 31, No. 2 The Tempest - III. Allegretto (Paul Pitman, Musopen)

Sound editing:
Under the Spreading Oak Tree, 2018. All rights reserved.

Little Nemo (Winsor McCay and his Motion Comics, 1911)

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2018-07-19 | Characters from Winsor McCay's comic strip Little Nemo come to life in this groundbreaking animated short from 1911.

Music: Batty McFaddin by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

The House that Jack Built – Picture book

Under the Spreading Oak Tree 2017-07-03 | Illustrated by Randolph Caldecott
Read by Kara Shallenberg