Irish songs which aren't Irish

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 05:57 PM

Speaking as an Irishman, I'm not in the least offended by this thread.
In fact, I maybe somewhat of an offender, in that I sing many of these songs without acknowledging that they are not Irish.
Does being Irish and singing a non-Irish song make the song Irish, if only for the duration of the song?

Seamus

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: DonMeixner
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 06:08 PM

Re Bouzoukis:

I'll accept the style of playing as Irish. I'll even accept the notion of an "Irish Bouzouki". But I won't accept the notion that a Bouzouki is a traditional Irish instrument any more than a banjo is a traditional Irish instrument or a guitar for that matter. I'll grant that they have styles of playing about them that is unique to Irish performers but those instruments came elsewhere from different traditions.

Kind of like my statement and firm belief that it is the singing that is the tradition and not the song.

When bagpipes are mentioned people first duck and run but then they assume that they are talking about Scottish Bagpipes. I can think of several cultures where the bagpipes exist but people only assume that we are talking of Highland pipes. When did the peipes come to Scotland? Was it before the Crusades? Did they come in with the Romans?

Don

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 06:24 PM

No evidence of bagpipes in Scotland (or anywhere else in Britain) prior to the Crusades, apart -perhaps- from a single (reportedly) Roman carving found in England. The pipes probably arrived in Scotland via England (where they appear earlier in surviving records) or, for those to whom that likelihood is distasteful, just possibly France.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: DonMeixner
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 06:29 PM

I always suspected those French....

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 06:46 PM

Tradition doesn't have to mean all that old. After all, tThe Mudcat has its traditions, such as that any thread involving Ireland has at some point to involve some people getting hot under the collar. Actually, it sometimes seems, any thread about anything...

The remodelled bouzouki has now been around long enough to be a part of tradition. That's why the intensely and aggressively traditional organisers of the Fleadh Ceoil include it in the range of competition instruments, along with the banjo and all the other 20th century innovations.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Margret RoadKnight
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 06:57 PM

"Drink a Round to Ireland"

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: EagleWing
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 07:18 PM

A nameless guest says:
"I believe these threads--never begun by Irish posters, mind--are a form of anti-Irish bigotry, just as the "Irish weren't Celts" sorts of threads are. You never would see this sort of thread about any other nationality in the folk scene, and these threads certainly have more than wee bit of Brit triumphalism to them, don't they?"

Anti-Irish bigotry? I have been in an English field where 30,000 odd English folk sat and roared out Anti-British songs in chorus with the Dubliners. It didn't occur to me until the next day to ask what would happen if an English group went to Ireland and did an evening of anti-Irish songs. I doubt if they would have survived, let alone had people joining in the choruses. Then I realised. It couldn't happen, of course. The English don't write anti-Irish songs. (Though they do tell stupid Irish jokes which are rarely funny and rarely relevant to the Irish).

Frank

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: EagleWing
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 07:34 PM

"In fact, I maybe somewhat of an offender, in that I sing many of these songs without acknowledging that they are not Irish."

I don't think you have to state that a song is not Irish when you sing them. If you claimed them as Irish knowing they're not, that might be another matter.

Frank L.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: goodbar
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 07:51 PM

i really don't care if a song is irish, english, scottish, american, australian, or kenyan as long as it's good.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Pat Cooksey
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 07:57 PM

As it happens I sing many songs which are not Irish, some I wrote
in England, The Reason I Left Mullingar, The Streets of Ennis, and many more.
The most well known of my songs The Sick Note, or Why Paddy's not
at work Today, was also composed in England, but it seems to have
spread worldwide as a traditional Irish song.
Nice to see Seamus Kennedy on this thread, happy New Year my friend.
On my new C.D. is Song for the Mira, not an Irish song but I like it,
the royalties are on the way.
Happy New Year to you all,

Pat.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 11:21 PM

G'day McGrath of Harlow,

"... I'm sure I read somewhere in a thread about someone who got told off by Greek listeners when he called the instrument he was playing "a bouzouki". ..."

Perhaps the Greeks are starting to get a bit overly territorial (and precise) about the Turkish instrument that came back to Greece with the Greek nationals expelled by the Turks in the 1920s. About 40 years ago, I was experimenting with a small guitar body - and re-strung it as an 8-string instrument, with 4 courses, or pairs of strings. Once I had it making interesting, if not terribly traditional, sounds I happened to have it out when a family friend - a Greek Cypriot who had migrated to Australia post WW II - saw it ... and immediately declared that it was a bouzouki! In fact, I wonder if he had come across makeshift conversions of old instruments, on Crete ... not all that different from mine.

If the instrument had not finally crumpled up somewhere in my interstate rovings between construction camps ... I would probably have ended up restringing it to something in the Irish bouzouki group of tunings (instead of the all-octaves, re-entrant, tuning I ended up with ... a sort of 8-string bass ukulele!).

I had never, back then, even seen a bouzouki - or its saz or ud ancestors ... but Andy (Angelou .. ?) Pavlakis has quite happy that it fitted well enough into the category, so the lack of a deep 'lute' bowl didn't worry him at all.

Regards,

Bob

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 11:30 PM

An Irish song is one that:
   
   (a) Is written in Ireland, no matter what it is about.
   
   (b) Is written by an 'Irish' person, no matter how many generations removed from Ireland.
   
   (c) Is about Ireland, in even the vaguest fashion.
   
   (d) Sounds as though it MIGHT be about Ireland.
   
   
   Regarding (b) I note mention of Stephen Foster above, and I have seen somewhere that he may
   have had Irish ancestry, therefore his songs must be Irish.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: DonMeixner
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 11:45 PM

Hi Bob,

Years ago Nick Reynolds looked into an 8 String tenor guitar to play with in The Kingston Trio. I have seen Mando Cellos tuned and played as if present day Bouzoukis.

Perhaps I expect things to be a little longer in the public domain before they are accepted as part of the tradition. Certainly nothing I'm willing to get over.

Maybe we need to be a whole lot less "pigeonholing" about or music and a lot more open to the good thats out there. I must admit that even I can be a bit strident about some of my points. Hope I don't/didn't ruffle some feathers too deeply.

Don

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: freightdawg
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 12:02 AM

Hey Seamus...

"You're not Irish, you can't be Irish, you don't know 'Danny Boy'..."

(tee hee)

To get a little theological thread drift in here (talk about rowing with crooked oars), how many of the Psalms are introduced by "...a Psalm of David". Now we know that David did not write *every* one of the Psalms so noted, some were written by David, some about David, and some were collected by David.

So the songs of Ireland. Some were written by the Irish, some about the Irish, and some collected by and assimilated by the Irish. Americans have done the same thing (i.e. the history of "Yankee Doodle Dandy").

I for one have enjoyed the thread. I know some folks who swear that all the "tin pan alley" songs are truly Irish. With the little bit of ammo you all have provided me with I shall have no end of fun with them.

O, what tangled webs we weave when first a Mudcat thread we read...

Freightdawg

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: EagleWing
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 06:44 AM

A GUEST says "An Irish song is one that:
   
   (a) Is written in Ireland, no matter what it is about.
   
   (b) Is written by an 'Irish' person, no matter how many generations removed from Ireland.
   
   (c) Is about Ireland, in even the vaguest fashion.
   
   (d) Sounds as though it MIGHT be about Ireland."

By that logic, the following songs are all English

"The Croppy Boy"
"The Rising of the Moon"
"The Foggy Dew"
"The Wind that Shakes the Barley"
"Kelly the Boy from Killane"
"Kevin Barry"
and many others.

Why - Well, they are all "about England, in the vaguest fashion."

Frank L

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Weasel Books
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 07:13 AM

Isn't the "Foggy Dew" based on an English folksong?

Bouzoukis are definetely a part of TODAY'S tradition, I think that qualifies. Let's not even talk about banjos and mandolins. If I were to say bouzoukis were a traditional instrument 30 years ago, that's a different matter.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 08:30 AM

The Foggy Dew shares it's title with an English song but that's about all.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 09:00 AM

Eagle Wing,
                   Don't take me too seriously, PLEASE!

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Weasel Books
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 09:04 AM

It's the same tune though, isn't it?

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 09:14 AM

The real question is, if they sing Irish songs, will they be allowed to play football for Ireland?

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 09:41 AM

GUEST says "An Irish song is one that:

(a) Is written in Ireland, no matter what it is about.

(b) Is written by an 'Irish' person, no matter how many generations removed from Ireland.
   
(c) Is about Ireland, in even the vaguest fashion.
   
(d) Sounds as though it MIGHT be about Ireland."

But he forgot the main one

(e) Is not written in Ireland; is not written by an Irish person; is not about Irland; does not sound as though it MIGHT be about Ireland; but has been recorded by an Irish singer or group (especially the Dubliners).

And a song can acquire a new nationality by adoption - many songs originating elsewhere are now definitely in the Irish tradition. And you can tell people thet Lamorna is about Manchester until you are blue in the face - it is now as Cornish as the Furry Dance.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Big Mick
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 09:44 AM

Every so often we go through these discussions. They are fine, and don't offend me, as in my shows I always mix a liberal dose of education with the entertainment. I usually point out which songs are based on older songs, often that they didn't originate in Ireland, or how they came to be identified as Irish. Having said that, I have noticed in most of these threads, a certain amount of "shamrock envy". But not much, and in the case of this thread, a fairly civil conversation.

One thing that I have noticed about the "purists" and their disdain about what constitutes "traditional", with regard to instrumentation or interpretation. They often try to impose their definition of what is the one way to perform the music. For me, one of the great traditions among the Irish, and the scattered children of that island, is that we will take the wonderful legacy and blend it with the times and instrumentation, as well as the style. An example would be the Uilleann Pipes. This is an instrument that was never made to be played ensemble, and up until the 1960's was almost exclusively played solo. Today it is every bit as much an ensemble instrument, while still retaining it's solo heritage. At the beginning of the twentieth century one would rarely see any of the instrumentation we use now, beyond the harp and flute. And you certainly would not have heard a bodhran in the mix.

The point is that, IMHO, part of the tradition IS that we Irish will borrow songs, tunes, and instruments into our vibrant, living, and evolving musical heritage and let it take the music where it is bound to go. With regard to the Tin Pan Alley stuff, it seems to me that the Irish who had to leave took their longing for home with them. Given that music is central to our culture, it is only natural that new songs would come, and that they would reflect the times. While I don't care for this stuff, I will play it for those that enjoy it. And Tin Pan Alley isn't the only source of this, as many wonderful songs about Ireland and the Irish have come from the grandchildren of Ireland in other countries. From Clare to Here, Song for Ireland, Wild Colonial Boy, even Tim O'Brien has written some wonderful stuff. Give a listen to his "John Riley", in fact listen to both of his albums where he takes his American old timey instrumentation and applies it. They are wonderful.

Now ..... about The Unicorn ..... Jeez, but I hate that song.....

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:02 AM

Maybe those Tin Pan Alley songs are disliked because you often would need to know more than three chords to play them.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: EagleWing
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:09 AM

A GUEST says "Eagle Wing,
                   Don't take me too seriously, PLEASE!"

I wasn't taking you seriously at all - and my reply was equally tongue in cheek.

Frank L

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: GUEST,The O'Meara
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:09 AM

Whwn I was a kid in west Texas, many long years ago, all blue jeans were Levi's and all hats were Stetsons. "Pull on yer Levi's, boys, and grab yer Stetsons, we're gonna ride!" Same way all nose papers were "Kleenex" and all copying machines made "Xerox" copies. It's easier to say "Hand me a Kleenex" than to say "Hand me a nasal tissue." Everyone knew what you meant, without a formal definition.
   I reckon that's the same with "Irish" music. For general purposes, most folks know what you mean when you say "Irish Music."
   Seamus Kennedy: I didn't know La Vie En Rose was Irish until I heard it on your CD.

O'Meara

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: EagleWing
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:14 AM

Weasle Books said "It's the same tune though, isn't it? " (re:Foggy Dew)

The English song "Foggy Dew" is about a batchelor who keeps a maiden from the "Foggy Dew" and procreates a son.

The Irish song I mentioned is a rebel song which refers to "Britania's sons, with their long range guns, crept in with the foggy dew." I believe there is a non-rebel version of that song but understood it to be still Irish (though this thread has made me wonder!)

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: GUEST,Billy Boy in France
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:39 AM

I heard dirty ol' town was about liverpool, or maybe salford as mentioned above it more correct.

Being sung by the dubliners confused the issue!

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Big Mick
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:58 AM

Dear GUEST of 04 Jan 05 - 10:02 AM,

If you would like help locating an appropriate chord encyclopedia to improve your ability to play more involved songs, drop me a PM.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: greg stephens
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 11:17 AM

I have noticed had that people in this thread are referred to as "Irish" even if their famlies have lived for many generations as citizens of te US. Does this principle apply to immigrants of all ethnic groups in American? I imagine with ethnic groups that are visually recognisable(eg black or Chinese) this would last for ever, but how does the principle apply to the English,or Norwegian immigrant to America?
    And on the subject pf non-Irish songs(as opposed to non irish people): it is the humorous misappropriations into the "celtic" canon that give me most pleasure. My personal favourites are the identification of "Any old iron" as an Irish folksong on an intenet site; a song of more gungoho Lodon-ness could not be imagined. I have also seen "The lish young buy-a-broom" identified as Irish many times, which is a bit funny when you consider it is written in noerth-western English dialect, and the action of the song takes place between Kirkby Stephen and Kendal. Now, I am perfectly delighted if anybody wants to sing these songs in Tralee or Timbuktu, but it takes more than a Clannad or Dubliners recording to localise a song in a new home fully. That is a slightly longer process.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Big Mick
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 11:33 AM

Great question, greg. In fact, most Yanks that I know identify themselves as Irish, English, Dutch, German, Native American, etc. It is, I suppose, due to the fact that we are an immigrant nation and folks divided up and hung out based on national origin. It is not unusual in the older (usually Eastern US) cities to have whole neighborhoods with signage in the language of the nation from which the early settlers arrived. And this goes on nowadays as one sees signage in the language of the newer immigrant groups.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Rain Dog
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 11:44 AM

Interesting thread. Of course most of these mistaken ideas about where a song comes from arise from the fact that most people cannot be bothered to look to see who wrote the song in the first place.
Then of course songs become 'adopted' by the people who sing them. Songs develop a life of their own as they make their way around the world. To insist that Dirty Old Town is 'about' Salford ( or whatever other north of England town you think it is )is rather pedantic. It has become a song about any dirty old town.
As to the 'tradtional' songs by mr and mrs anon, these songs and tunes have found their own ways around the world and will continue to do so. Each may claim them for their own but they can never 'own' them.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 11:46 AM

The two Foggy Dews have different tunes as well as different lyrics

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: EagleWing
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 12:25 PM

Billie boy says "I heard dirty ol' town was about liverpool, or maybe salford as mentioned above it more correct.

Being sung by the dubliners confused the issue!"

Of course, Liverpool is in Ireland. Everyone knows that. :-)

Definitely Salford!

Frank L

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 01:35 PM

Two completely different Foggy Dews, true enough. But the bachelor with a son song has existed in all kinds of versions all over the British Isles - it's one of that third category of songs I mentioned up the thread, which are native to the whole archipelago. Particular versions hale from particular places, that's true, but the songs are at home everywhere.

There's a lot to be said for looking around to find a version from your own neck of the woods - "your own neck of the woods" normally meaning something a bit more local than the country you live in or come from.
...........................
The question of how second third and generation Irish feel about the country to which they have been transplanted has been affected a lot in England by the ongoing dispute between the two countries, which puts up a barrier, and that wouldn't apply in the USA. You'd never see a Union Jack in an Irish Assiociation in Engand, but I imagine the Stars and Stripes would be common in an equivalent setting in the USA.

I imagine whether it might be a bit more like that for some people with roots elsewhere, such as Mexico, where the shared history with the USA includes a fair amount of conflict and aggression.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: ard mhacha
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 02:17 PM

Greg Stephens I heard "Buy a broom" sung many times but never in any other accent but Geordie, north-eastern England, and for the last time, I hope, "Dirty old town" refers to Salford.
And please, the majority of the songs mentioned in this thread can be claimed by whatever other country wants them, personally I would rather have the toothache than listen to some of them, and the Unicorns horn should be inserted up the ass of whoever sings this bloody awful dirge.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Big Tim
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 02:52 PM

Forty Shades of Green.

Broad Majestic Shannon (!)

West Coast of Clare (!)

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: EagleWing
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 03:29 PM

On a Clancy Brothers LP I have is a very beautiful song written, I believe, by an American Jew. It's entitled "Lament for Brendan Behan". Despite knowing its source I can never think of it as other than an Irish song. It is one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard and the Clancy's performance of it is wonderful.

Frank L.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 04:21 PM

When the world was created the "Arabs" got most of the oil and the "Irish" got to sing most of the best songs.
It's an ill divided world, he says with a smile
So who really got the best deal?
O'Meara's post gets my vote for the best answer.
Kenny B

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Weasel Books
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 05:12 PM

Ewan MacColl wrote it about Salford didn't he, but the beauty of it (or of any good song) is that you can identify it with any grey, depressing, squalid industriallised town.
I think the best take is Shane McGowan singing it. His whiskey-parched delivery gives a seedy edge to it that just works.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 06:00 PM

So far I've survived without ever hearing that unicorn song, I think. Maybe it is tempting fate to say that.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Cruiser
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 06:13 PM

"Gimme some green alligators and long-necked geese..."

My favortite version (and I am an atheist) is by The IRISH Rovers, who "popularized" it in the 60s.

"The Lord seen some sinnin' and it gave HIM great pain...."

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: greg stephens
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 06:29 PM

Ard Mhacha: The Lish YoungBuy a Broom may have been attributed to Ireland, and you may have always heard it sung in Geordie. But it was written by a Cumbrian, about a trip between Kirkby Stephen and Kendal, neither of which are in Geordieland. Sure songs transplant an acclimatise, great, but this soneg was originally about the north west of England, as was Dirty Old Town(Salford). If others choos e to sing them, brilliant. It would be a boring old world if we were parochial about music, a good song is a good song.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: GUEST,sorefingers
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 06:51 PM

On the telly here there's an add which says, 'there's a little bit of Ireland in us all' .. so that makes every song a little bit 'Irish', or as some pronounce it 'Oirish', as in 'Oi.. Oim Oirish'

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 08:11 PM

Big Mick

Re "Maybe those Tin Pan Alley songs are disliked because you often would need to know more than three chords to play them."

What I meant was that you would probably have to know more about music to play, say, "Peggy O'Neill" than the basic songs that are trotted out by Irish bands these days.

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Big Mick
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 08:18 PM

I agree, GUEST. And you used an excellent song to demonstrate the point.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 08:21 PM

Big Mick, I love them all! Well most of them!

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:17 PM

And NO ONE has mentioned that WONDERFUL Traditional Irish instrument the Bodhran , introduced to Ireland from central Europe in (I think)
the nineteen thirties !

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:19 PM

Incidentally , this is one of the most intersting threads we have had on the cat for a while ! A lot of REAL information !

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:21 PM

A Lot of Good Humour , and remarkably little nastiness !!

Subject: RE: Irish songs which aren't Irish
From: Leadfingers
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 10:21 PM

AND the cjhance for me get another 100th post in !!