"Lily of the West" is a traditional Irish folk song, best known today as an American folk song. The American version is about a man who travels to Louisville and falls in love with a woman named Mary, Flora or Molly, the eponymous Lily of the West. He catches Mary being unfaithful to him, and, in a fit of rage, stabs the man she is with, and is subsequently imprisoned. In spite of this, he finds himself still in love with her. In the original version, the Lily testifies in his defense and he is freed, though they do not resume their relationship.

The lyrics to the first verse are as follows:

- and every verse ends with a repetition of the phrase, Flora, the lily of the West.

The Irish experience

The song is often interpreted as a metaphor for the English, Scots-Irish and general British and Irish experience in western early and colonial America, with nods to their earlier experiences on the margins of Ireland, Scotland, and the Borders.

The first Chieftains recording of the song, from their earlier album The Long Black Veil and sung by Mark Knopfler, is set in Ireland. A later recording by The Chieftains and Rosanne Cash from The Chieftains' album Further Down the Old Plank Road, ends with the man's being released and traveling across the Atlantic to "ramble through old Ireland/And travel Scotland o'er". Despite leaving America, he finds that he is still in love and mentally fixated on the woman, known in this version as Flora.

West is a cardinal direction.

West or The West may also refer to:

Geography

Global context

National contexts

Media

Roads in the United Kingdom form a network of varied quality and capacity. Road distances are shown in miles or yards and UK speed limits are indicated in miles per hour (mph) or by the use of the national speed limit (NSL) symbol. Some vehicle categories have various lower maximum limits enforced by speed limiters. Enforcement of UK road speed limits increasingly uses speed guns, automated in-vehicle systems and automated roadside traffic cameras. A unified numbering system is in place for Great Britain, whilst in Northern Ireland, there is no available explanation for the allocation of road numbers.

The earliest specifically engineered roads were built during the British Iron Age. The road network was expanded during the Roman occupation. Some of these survive and others were lost. New roads were added in the Middle Ages and from the 17th century onwards. Whilst control has been transferred from local to central bodies and back again, current management and development of the road network is shared between local authorities, the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and the Highways Agency. Certain aspects of the legal framework remain under the competence of the United Kingdom parliament.

The West is a 1999 electronic music album by Matmos.

Track listing

Reception

The West received positive reviews from music critics. John Bush, reviewing the album for AllMusic, described it as "seriously done but really playful, groovy even while it's slightly academic sounding, and experimental but undeniably entertaining."Pitchfork's Mark Richardson wrote in 2003 that The West was then considered by many fans to be the duo's masterpiece. He also writes: "The West contains guitar and other stringed instruments that, in places, evoke the Sergio Leone "big sky" of the Western landscape, but it also has a fair amount of abstract electronic noise without any particular association."

References