First, to all, a Happy St. Patrick's Day. Even if you're not Irish, you can't help but get swept up in at least some of the spirit of the day. On March 17, we're all Irish, just as we're all Jewish the minute we step into a theater to see "Fiddler on the Roof."
Being half Irish (on my mother's side), I sometimes resent the overt implication that St. Patrick's Day is an excuse for a) local politicians to get together to lambaste each other with a smile on their faces before they go off to carve each other up for real; and b) people everywhere to get rip-roaring drunk. I don't drink as a general rule, but even before I reached the point in my life where alcohol ceased to be a part of it, there were two days on which I made SURE I didn't drink: New Year's Eve and St. Patrick's Day.
The first is a night for amateurs. The second was more a reaction to what I consider to be blatant ethnic stereotyping ... the drunken Irishman. And what's worse is that I know a lot of Irish people who absolutely -- and with great glee and vigor -- help perpetuate that stereotype. Think of any other ethnic group consciously aiding and abetting such uncomplimentary stereotypes. It just doesn't happen.
I don't know what that means. Either we're perpetually good sports about it (which is, I think the case), or we're too drunk to know the difference (which I'm sure is not the case!).
I won't say that I didn't do my share of Irish pubbing back in The Day. I've been to a few. And even if I was never the type to get falling-down drunk when I went out, I always enjoyed the music. And to me, being Irish is more about the music than anything else.
And I certainly have my list of Irish favorites. So, in recognition of the day, here are some of my favorite Irish tunes.
Whistling Gypsy Rover, whose best version is by the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Where a lot of Irish folk songs are built around "the troubles," this one's not. It's' just a nice little song about a guy who loves -- and wins the heart of -- a woman. It speaks more of the strong streak of sentimentality that runs through a lot of Irish music than it does the perpetual "troubles."
The Wild Colonial Boy, this version also by the Clancy Brothers with Tommy, although that's not the only one. This one just has an introduction by the redoubtable Ed Sullivan. Again, if there's anything that Irish do well (other than drink), they tell a good story. And this is a great story.
One other thing: love those heavy sweaters that Clancy Brothers used to wear all the time. Now, if you know anything about being on TV, you know that the lights on those sound stages emit heat that makes you feel like you're about 10 feet from the sun. So those Clancys must have lost a ton of weight that night.
It's not technically Irish, but if you've ever heard Roger Daltry sing Behind Blue eyes with the Chieftains, it qualifies. Actually, just put the entire catalog of the Chieftains here.
When she's not ripping up pictures of the pope, Sinead O'Connor can sing some wonderfully moving songs. The Foggy Dew, accompanied here by the Chieftains, is one of them. And this would seem to be a more traditional type of "troubles" song, also recorded in 1966 by the Clancy Brothers, about the uprising of 1916. I just really like this version.
Black Velvet Band. This is the Irish Rovers' version. Now, is one of the great pub singalong songs of them all. I doubt there's any Irish person alive who doesn't know the chorus, and even if you don't have a drop of Irish in you, it's refrain is easy enough to memorize.
There are a lot of versions of this, but this is my favorite. The Irish Rovers get a couple of songs on this list, but curiously enough, "The Unicorn" is not one of them. I don't know why. It's never been a favorite of mine.
And it's No, Nay, Never, no, nay, never, no more ... I've played the Wild Rover ... no, never, no more. This one by the Dubliners.
Again, a very cool sing-along song, best managed after you've, ahem, had few pints. If there's any reason to lubricate yourself at the pub, by the way, it's only so you can be brave enough to belt out some of these songs. Because the best part of going to hear an traditional Irish folk band is the camaraderie of singing them.
And don't forget to clap four times between the first and second "no, nay, nevers."
I don't know if this can be considered a traditional Irish song, because it was a hit with none other than Michael McGear, a/k/a Michael McCartney, a/k/a Sir Paul's Brother. But when you hear the Irish Rovers do Lily The Pink it might as well be an Irish song, right? I guess any song adopted by an Irish band, and sung with the proper brogue, automatically becomes part of the repertoire.
Here's an oddity for you. The Chieftains are great in their own right, but they sometimes do their best stuff collaborating with other artists. The Star of the County Down, which they did with Van Morrison, is is a rousing song, not unlike many others, that probably sounds best in a pub, in a party (or at least a social) environment. Just like scores of other Irish folk songs.
But what makes this unique is that the song (or at least the tune) has been co-opted by Mother Church. Because unless I'm mistaken, the last time I heard it (before I went and found it to download here) was at Sunday Mass.
You can't have a list of favorite Irish songs without having at least one of them by U2. I've provided a live version of Sunday Bloody Sunday here.
As Bono says in the introduction, it is not a rebel song. There are actually two instances of "Bloody Sundays" in Irish history. The first happened in 1920, when British soldiers fired into the crowd at a football (soccer) match in retaliation for the killing of some undercover agents. The second (and the incident this song refers to) occurred in 1972, when British paratroopers killed 13 Irish citizens at a civil rights protest in Derry, Northern Ireland.
I've saved this one until last. It is the only one of the 10 that would be considered traditional to my mother -- as opposed to traditional in a folk or rock sense. But of all the Irish songs, this one probably best portrays the poignancy and the tragedy of a lifetime of struggles and troubles on the part of the Irish.
It is, of course, Danny Boy, sung here by "three Irish Tenors." That's what it said on YouTube, anyway. I have no idea who the three Irish tenors are.
It is probably impossible to determine for sure how many Irish boys were named Daniel after this song. Thousands ... maybe even hundreds of thousands.
But it has a curious history. For starters, the words were written not by an Irishman, but an Englishman, Frederic Weatherly, and the tune we hear today was not the original tune. What we commonly know as "Danny Boy" today was adapted from "Londonderry Air" in 1913. And while it would certainly speak to a father's advice to his son on the eve of him going off to war -- presumably in the never-ending "troubles" -- when you consider this history, it has a much more universal meaning, doesn't it?
Perhaps, in a general sense, it is a father's mournful hymn to his son as he prepares to go off to any war, and, thus, the song has a timeless quality to it that makes it almost unique. All I know is that whenever it's sung, and by whomever it's sung, you can hear a pin drop ... even in the noisiest pub otherwise. That's how much respect the song commands, and that's how powerful its message is.
May the road rise to meet you
May the wind be always at your back
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.
And may you be in heaven a full half hour before the devil knows you're dead.
