"Don't do it, Jim. There is nothing to be gained. "
Wouldn't dream of it Vic - but thanks anyway
Just finished this one of Tom Lenihan talking; Pat stumbled over the bit added to the end - we scanned it out from an early edition of Tocher.
Tom was an elderly farmer from West Clare; we recorded him for around 15 years and got several hundred songs from him.
Jim Carroll

TOM LENIHAN
12 PUTTING THE BLÁS* IN THE SONG
J C   What's the word you used Tom, blas, what…
T L   The blas, that was what the old people used to use
If you didn't put the blás in the song, whatever the b'ás means I do not know, but 'twas often said to me and I singing a song, "You puts the real blas in the song'.
The same as that now, 'Michael Hayes', 'The Fox Chase':

Sings:
I am a bold and undaunted fox that never was before on tramp,
My rent, rates and taxes I was willing for to pay.
I lived as happy as King Saul, and loved my neighbours, great and small,
I had no animosity for either friend nor foe.

You have to draw out the words and put the blas in the song.
If you did the same as the Swedish couple **

Sings, speeded up:
I am a bold and undaunted fox that never was before on tramp.

The blas isn't in that, in any bit of it.
You see now, the blas is the drawing out of the words and the music of it.

J C   What do you think you're passing on with a song Tom, is it a good tune, is it a good story or nice poetry, or what?
T L   'Tis some story I'm passing on with the song all the time
I the composition that was done that time, or the poets that was in it that time, they had the real stuff for to compose their song, they had some story in it.
As I tell you about 'The Christmas Letter', they had some story, but in today's poets, there is no story but the one thing over and over and over again, d'you see?

J C   Yeah.

T L   But that time they had the real story for to start off the song and…., the same as the song I'm after singer there, 'The Fair Maiden in her Father's Garden', well that happened sometime surel; the lover came back and she didn't know him, of course, but yet he knew her, and there he was, and that happened. for certain.
Michael Hayes happened, 'The Christmas Letter' as I say, all them old traditional stuff, that old mother that got the letter for Christmas from her family, all them things happened.
It was right tradition all along, and it was a story or something that happened.

J C   When you sing a song like 'Farmer Michael Hayes', do you have some picture in your mind of what he looks like, his description and what…?

T L   That's right, you will, you'll have a description of Michael Hayes and when he went in and shot the agent and all that sort of that thing that goes on in the song

J C    But you have a picture of what the man looks like?

T L   What the man looks like, that he was a tough man, of course.
But where the story was entirely, how he brought his legs to the United States, and the whole country after him and…
And all the stories, 'The Colleen Bán' there again, is a story handed down, that happened.
J C   Yeah.

* Blas - Relish, taste, good accent (Irish)
** Reference to two visitors who had asked Toms advice on singing