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A Shaker Melody from "The Lord of the Dance"

Michael Flatley has used his vision, ambition, and peerless talent to bring an unprecedented glamour and popularity to traditional Irish step-dancing. The music for his spectacular show Lord of the Dance was written by Dublin-based Ronan Hardiman, one of Ireland's leading film, television, and commercial composers. The number from which the show takes its name is based on a joyous melody of the American Shakers originally titled Simple Gifts (also borrowed by Aaron Copland for his ballet Appalachian Spring), which the English songwriter and folklorist Sydney Carter fitted with a new text in 1968 as Lord of the Dance.