I play about twenty Irish pub gigs a month in and around Colorado. I ask an audience what they want to hear and play it. Last Wednesday it was Fado in LODO Denver and the seven fellas at the table in front of the stage were drinking Budweiser...

Who comes into an Irish Pub and unabashedly drinks Budweiser???? REAL IRISHMEN...in town for a wedding. They asked for Wolftones and I gave them "Come Out ye Black and Tans" and they sang along lustily.

They really liked to hear an American singing Desi O'Halloran's "Say You Love Me" as well. I've had English skiers DEMAND to hear "The Merry Plowboy"--proving what an Irish owner of a pub once told me:

"Go ahead and play anything you want, it won't offend them...the English don't GET IT." And I think that point was made earlier by another writer...they don't see themselves as the subject matter when oppression and hangings and fighting is sung of...and perhaps they shouldn't. I am singing and entertaining--I have no "agenda" nor would it be appropriate.

But just try to sing "God Bless England" and some plastic Paddy will thunder "HERESY!!!!" from the back of the room...that twit doesn't get it either.

Now, I'm so sick of "Whiskey in the Jar", I think it should be banned and Green Fields of France along with it!!!

Brian Clancy http://irishrow.com