Tew ha Bras is a comical ballad set to the Breton tune Koad Keryann.
In 1989, there was a great outcry against the poll-tax. I wrote the song Erbynn an tollow-penn, 'Against the poll-tax', set to the tune of St Keverne Feasting Song.
Kernow sa'bann! is a rousing song set to the Breton tune Breizhiz war-sav!.
In 2018, the organizers of Lowender Pyran commissioned me to compose a song in both Cornish and Breton, and I wrote one in the style of Breton kan ha diskan, on the theme of smuggling.
One of the first songs which I translated, into Unified in those days, was the traditional English ballad The Farmer's Boy. It includes the poor rhyme koez ≠ boz; I would avoid such a rhyme now, but at the time of translation it was not appreciated that there are two o-type vowels in Cornish.
In 1982, Richard Jenkin translated the national song Hail to the Homeland, but I found it difficult to sing, because (as with many translations) the stress-pattern of some of the words did not fit the music. So in 1986, I produced a translation with the same first line: Hayl dh'agan Mammvro. The reader may care to compare them. The same problem arose with Richard Gendall's translation of The Old Grey Duck, so I made a new translation in about 1983: An hoz loez koth.
The Cornish word for 'yesterday' is de, so when translating the Beatles' song Yesterday, I substituted Seulabryz. Here is Matthi Clarke singing it. I have also translated I wanna hold your hand.
Welsh choirs are prepared to sing in Welsh, because there are nearly always Welsh-speaking members who can help those to do not speak Welsh. Alas, the position with Cornish choirs is not the same. Cornish choirs do not readily take to singing in Cornish, even though some are prepared to sing in languages other than English. In 2010, the group Fishermen's Friends brought out their song No hopers, jokers and rogues. I translated it into Cornish as Mebyon an pla and sent the translation to the group; they showed no interest.
I had much more success working with Tanya Brittain and her folk-group The Changing Room. I translated the following fourteen of her songs into Cornish, and am grateful to her for permission to include her lyrics on this web-site. The first of these songs was released in 2016 only in Cornish, sung by Sam Kelly.
| Let it rain | Gwrello Glaw | sung in Cornish |
| A river runs between | Yntredha dowr a rez | sung in Cornish |
| Row boys row | Roev sos roev | sung in Cornish |
| Hal an Tow | Hal an Tow | sung in Cornish |
| Names on a wall | Henwyn orth fos | sung in English |
| Behind the lace | A-dryv an las | sung in English |
| Deep beneath the sea | Down yn-dann an mor | no recording | The mermaid of Seaton | Morvoren Seythyn | no recording |
| The siege of Skewys | Esedhva Skewyz | no recording |
| My blood is on your coal | Ow goez yma y'th glow | no recording |
| Something more precious than time | Nep-pyth yw druttha ez pryz | no recording |
| Dance with me | Genev dons | no recording |
| Song for Will | Kan rag Wella | no recording |
| Oh! Alas | Ogh! Ellas | no recording |
When people got to know that I translated songs, I was asked to do so from time to time. Here is my translation of Mike Hartland's song Seaton Valley. In 2023, the Welsh performers at the Dark Gathering in Tintagel (a festival for Samhain) wrote a macaronic song, with alternating verses in English and Welsh. They asked me to translate the English verses into Cornish, and fit them to the tune of Mari Lwyd, and then to sing the Cornish at the festival. Here are the lyrics.
In 2019, Matthi Clarke translated Harry Glasson's song Cornwall my home. Here is Matthi singing his translation. Since Harry Glasson wrote the song for the Cape Cornwall singers, the local references in the lyrics are all in West Penwith. In 2026, the organization CreativeLooe asked me to translate into Cornish a version of the song in which the West Penwith references had been replaced by alternatives referring to Looe and district. I agreed to do this, after confirming that copyright had been respected, even though I thought that the Looe version could have been better. Here is the result. Because 87% of the original song remained in the Looe version, it was then a simple matter to translate the other 13% to produce my own translation of the original.
In about 1981, I heard the Breton song Paotr ar Yeoded, and translated it into Cornish, or rather paraphrased it, transferring the setting from the Breton village of Ar Yeoded to Polruan. The Cornish version is called Porth an Nev.
In 2025, I was asked to translate the Breton song Kenavo deoc'h, gwir Vretoned into Cornish. Here is the result.
Lúa is a children's song in Galician. Here is my attempt to translate it into Cornish; it does not capture the essence of the original.