Most common Irish folk requests

Subject: Most common Irish folk requests
From: GUEST,Jon Vance
Date: 02 Jan 18 - 05:51 PM

I'm an unaccompanied solo folk singer, and I've been tapped to do an all-request hour at a St. Patrick's Day festival this year. I'm wondering if anyone would share a list of your most commonly requested relevant songs so I can make sure my repertoire is up to it!

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: meself
Date: 02 Jan 18 - 06:07 PM

I've been finding the St. P's Day thing a little trickier the last few years - because while you want to have all the old chestnuts ready, in a lot of pubs where I am (Calgary, Alberta), people only want maybe one set of Irish, then back to the usual hoo-haw. And they don't sing along and get weepy with the old stuff, the way they used to. So, it depends on what sort of crowd you're expecting .... You do want to be able to pull out Danny Boy, Fields of Athenry ... I'll let everybody else chime in with the rest.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: meself
Date: 02 Jan 18 - 06:09 PM

OH, one I do get asked for now and then is The Night that Paddy Murphy Died - meaning something like the Great Big Sea version.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: GUEST,Jon Vance
Date: 02 Jan 18 - 06:10 PM

Well, this is an annual St. Patrick's Day festival hosted by the Irish Cultural Center. They pretty much pull in every local Irish pub band and stick 'em on a stage in tents rotating from 10AM until midnight. I think this may be one rare circumstance in which you'd get booed off stage if you deviate too much from classics :-)

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: meself
Date: 02 Jan 18 - 09:58 PM

I thought you would have been swamped with suggestions and opinions by. Anyway, check back, and if nobody chips in, I'll cut & paste a list at some point .....

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: GUEST,Tinker from Chicago
Date: 02 Jan 18 - 10:56 PM

Wild Rover, The Unicorn (yeah, I know it's not really Irish, but my audiences don't), The Moonshiner, Black Velvet Band...

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Ernest
Date: 03 Jan 18 - 03:30 AM

...Whiskey in the Jar, Dirty Old Town, Fields of Athenry....

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Thompson
Date: 03 Jan 18 - 03:39 AM

Finnegan's Wake, Parting Glass, Sé Mo Laoch, An Dreoilín…?

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Murpholly
Date: 03 Jan 18 - 05:29 AM

We get requests for Irish Rover as well as most of the above and learn a couple of rebel songs if it is a strong Irish venue:- Grace; Roddy Macorley etc.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: GUEST,Jon Vance
Date: 03 Jan 18 - 04:53 PM

Thanks all for the assist. I suppose I'm in about as good a shape as I can anticipate. Knew I'd have to learn the damn Unicorn some day, and I suppose now's as good a time as any.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Jan 18 - 05:13 PM

Never forget the Christy gig I went to at the Colston Hall in Bristol in summat like 1990. There I was, on me tod, surrounded by a bunch of pissed expats, roaring at the stage "Home By Bearna, Christy!"

So my recommendation is to pick up your bodhran (don't worry if you can't play it because nobody can anyway), and give the buggers Home By Bearna!

Bum-debum-debum-debum-diddybum-debum-debum-debum

In Scartaglen there lives a lass...

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Jan 18 - 05:16 PM

It was the expats roaring at the stage, not me!

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: pattyClink
Date: 03 Jan 18 - 11:15 PM

Jon, I don't know about most-requested, but you might peruse some of the threads that are linked in this master thread regarding song for the big day:
(sorry I tried the blickifier and it failed, but paste this in your browser and it works)

https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=30566#394617

Personally, I might launch with "Wearing of the Green" before calling for requests, and consider whatever upbeat songs people in your area like to participate in, like Rattlin Bog or Rocky Road to Dublin or Black Velvet Band, etc., there might be more people calling for those than for the sentimental ones.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: vectis
Date: 03 Jan 18 - 11:17 PM

Step it out Mary is great for singing audiences. The Croppy Boy.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Thompson
Date: 04 Jan 18 - 09:57 AM

Boolavogue - an easy song to learn; The Croppy Boy (both versions); Clare's Dragoons; The Foggy Dew…

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: GUEST,Jon Vance
Date: 04 Jan 18 - 02:55 PM

Have you all actually had Croppy Boy requested? I've never had anyone even recognize it when I sing it!

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: GUEST,lefthanded guitar
Date: 04 Jan 18 - 03:50 PM

I would agree with the poster who said to stick
to the well known classics. I have attended a few
St Paddys Day parades and neighborhood celebrations and I would
suggest standards like:
Danny Boy
When Irish Eyes are Smiling
And, even though there s a debate about the song's origins:
Wild Mountain Thyme

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Roughyed
Date: 04 Jan 18 - 04:21 PM

Star of the County Down, I'll Tell Me Ma, Ride On, Galway Shawl, Fairy Tale of New York if you can pull it off unaccompanied, Back Home in Derry, Hot Asphalt, Carrickfergus, Maids When You're Young. And save Fields of Athenrye until late in the set or you'll only get asked to sing it again.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 04 Jan 18 - 07:22 PM

Song For Ireland, The Night Visiting Song.


Jay

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: meself
Date: 04 Jan 18 - 08:23 PM

I wonder how many of these are songs that are "likely to be requested" - as opposed to "good songs to do"?

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 18 - 10:23 PM

Kevin Barry and Isle of Innisfree

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Thompson
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 05:19 AM

Maybe it depends on where you're singing. I was once at one of those fake-mediaeval banquets (including potatoes!) in a castle in Dublin, and the tour-coach Americans were listening in unhappy silence to songs that were familiar and loved classics to all the Irish people there. Then the band copped on and started singing things like When Irish Eyes are Smiling, Did Your Mother Come from Ireland, Mother Machree, I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen and the Americans all cheered up and started singing along, while the natives' smiles stiffened into pained, polite grimaces.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 05:51 AM

well if you're an unaccompanied singer, i'm not sure. it begs the question, what do you usually sing?

if there's something you're good at, I'd stick to that.
Most of us who've done folk clubs can knock out The Wild Rover, Whisky in the Jar, Take You Home Kathleen, The Galway Shawl, Dublin in the rare old times, Molly Malone, The Irish Rover, Willy MacBride, The Black Velvet Band, Pretty Little Girl from Omagh...etc

if you've got something a bit different...particularly relating to specific places in Ireland, that seems to go very well. I'd do that.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 07:17 AM

If you're singing unaccompanied, and you're lucky enough to have a listening audience, how about the Sick Note song (why Paddy's not at work today)?
The traditional version of Wild Rover is nice too ( none of that no, nay, never stuff!) You can always do the popular version later!
Holy Ground - good for a cappella and joining in - fine girl you are!

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Roughyed
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 11:41 AM

You might have to interpret some of the requests. We were once asked by a drunk for the 'Station song'. It was only on the way home that we realised he meant Sally McLennane

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 11:41 AM

As far as the public are concerned all folk music and song comes from Ireland anyway.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: CupOfTea
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 01:06 PM

Agreeing to do an hour of only requests as an unaccompanied singer on St.Patricks Day sounds like doing penance for Lent to me!
In the US (you don't say where this is to be), even in a Cultural Center, on this day you are likely to get a larger than usual number of people who only expose themselves to Irish music a few times a year, and that mostly in pubs. How accustomed is this crowd likely to be with unaccompanied singing? Aficionados might be asking for some sean nos songs, perhaps? Is it a group that wants something they can sing along with? How much do they like political songs? Unless you've a repertoire that goes on for hundreds of songs, it sounds near impossible to be prepared for anything they throw at ya.

In the US, almost anything from the Clancy/Makem repertoire is popular. You might want to look at some of the threads about overdone songs folks could do without; Danny Boy, Fields of Athenry, Kilkelley, Willie McBride, all included and as likely a request as "Freebird!" was to a 70's rock cover band.

Perhaps a list of "suggestions" with songs you do well, and a handy fakebook for all the ones you sort-of know.

Best of luck, brave man.

Joanne in Siberia on the Heights

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 05 Jan 18 - 01:21 PM

Ha-ha Roughyed! Reminds me of the story told by Colum Sands re the request for the "Hairy Tongue" song that he got in The Netherlands.
"Oh, you MUST know that ...."
and her hairy tongue over her shoulder, dressed up with a black velvet band.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: GUEST,Jon Vance
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 12:56 PM

Thank you all again for the lists and advice.

Yes, CupOfTea, it is a bit stressful, but that's what the organizer wants! I've done an educational music show on the big day for the last couple years, and last year I was under time so I did 15 minutes or so of requests. The organizer of this much bigger event happened to see and love that part. Go figure.

Luckily I know most of the songs recommended in this thread, and I've made a small list of the seeming most likely to come up so I can learn them over the next couple months. I think I'll adopt a gimmick of giving a free beer to any requester with a song I don't know. Should make it more acceptable to miss some!

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 08 Jan 18 - 05:19 PM

I agree with CupOfTea...

What to expect depends entirely on your audience. Whether it means what we always call "Oirish" which pretty much are the American Tin Pan Alley Irish-themed songs that people who don't listen to folk music listen to and expect, or the repertoire of the Clancys (and Tommy Makem -- local boy, here in New Hampshire)or the Irish Rovers which are good songs though not necessarily strictly Irish in origin, or truly traditional Irish songs (with or without Scots Celtic added in).

You'll have to know something about your audience in order to prepare for this one.

Linn

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: GUEST,Gealt
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 05:46 AM

The song we sang 60 years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM4BhvqKxME

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 11:02 AM

(Shudder) God, yes. In fact, my mother used to blame the mass singing of Hail Glorious Saint Patrick for the unending pouring rain that invariably lashed down on the Patrick's Day parades all over the country. "They ask him to hail and he rains," she'd mutter, glaring out the window.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: leeneia
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 01:27 PM

I was once in a bar in the Virgin Islands where the band printed a list of the songs we could request and lay a copy on each table. Jon, why not borrow the idea and write out a list (use big print) of old favorites you know and stick it up on stage with some making tape? You could tape it to a music stand and turn the stand toward the audience.

This way you could eliminate songs you hate.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jan 18 - 08:52 PM

if you've got an Irish audience, you'll need The Soldiers Song to finish.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: Thompson
Date: 10 Jan 18 - 01:43 AM

Though normally The Soldiers' Song is sung in Irish as Amhrán na bhFíann - if you're going to sing it in English, maybe apologise that you don't have the ability to sing it in Irish, and ask people to join in, in whatever language.

Subject: RE: Most common Irish folk requests
From: meself
Date: 12 Jan 18 - 10:16 AM

"I think I'll adopt a gimmick of giving a free beer to any requester with a song I don't know."

Doesn't that defeat the purpose? I thought the object was to know the songs that people are likely to request - instead, you'd be challenging them to come up with obscure songs that you don't know ... ! Which would be different if you claimed to know virtually every Irish song going - but you started this thread, presumably, because you were unsure if your repertoire was sufficient to the job ....