Origins: The Pogues e.g Hell's Ditch instrumental

Subject: RE: Origins: The Pogues e.g Hell's Ditch instrumental
From: Helen
Date: 10 Mar 16 - 10:00 PM

gillymor,

Earlier in the thread you said:

"On the "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" album they follow up South Australia with "Salmon Tails Up the River" (or possibly the tune for "Red Haired Mary" which is very similar). "

On the new 5 CD set I just bought, the first track on the first CD is called The Kerry Polka. It's the same tune as the one which starts at just under 2 minutes on the South Australia track. It's very similar to Salmon Tails Up the River. The beginning of the Kerry Polka sounds like the beginning of the Scottish tune, Marie's Wedding, the part with the lyrics "step we lightly as we go, heel to heel and toe to toe".

By the way, the 5 CD box set is titled, Just Look Them in the Eye and Say Pogue Mahone.

I read most of what was on the page you linked to (and skipped the part about cruelty to cats). Very interesting information. Thanks.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Pogues e.g Hell's Ditch instrumental
From: gillymor
Date: 11 Mar 16 - 10:00 AM

I play the Kerry Polka with a concertina-playing friend of mine in a set with 3 Ballydesmond Polkas. Which Pogues album is it on? I haven't heard them do it. BTW, the tune is also known as Egan's Polka according to The Session.

Click here for 5 settings of Salmon Tails Up the River (or Water) at The Session, followed by some discussion. If you hit the download button and select Midi you can listen to each of them. The 5th one sounds most like what the Pogues play, to me.

Cheers

Subject: RE: Origins: The Pogues e.g Hell's Ditch instrumental
From: Helen
Date: 11 Mar 16 - 03:18 PM

Hi gillymor,

The Kerry Polka is track 1, CD 1 of the new box set I just bought called Just Look Them in the Eye and Say Pogue Mahone

I know The Session site. Great resource! One of the best.

I'll check out the Salmon Tails variations on the tune. I do hear that tune, but here is

The Kerry Polka track from the box set.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Pogues e.g Hell's Ditch instrumental
From: gillymor
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 08:57 AM

Thanks for the link, Helen. That is the tune the Pogues play after South Austrailia. There may be some elucidation in the comments accompanying the video.

Click here for the tune I know as "The Kerry Polka". The lovely young lady starts playing it 55 seconds in.

This can get confusing as, for example, there are 3 Ballydesmond polkas that are commonly played around here (we play them with the Kerry Polka linked above) and they are identified as 1,2 and 3 but sometimes people can't agree on which one is which.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Pogues e.g Hell's Ditch instrumental
From: Helen
Date: 12 Mar 16 - 02:38 PM

gillymor,

I was thinking about the tune that The Pogues call The Kerry Polka.

(As an aside, I had a friend, now sadly deceased, who was a blues man and not an Irish music fan. He was always very funny, and he called the Irish tunes "diddly dum diddly" music because it all sounded the same to him. If I wondered aloud about the name of a tune people were playing in a session he'd just say it was called Diddly Dum Diddly.)

So, the one that The Pogues called The Kerry Polka definitely sounds like the STUTR/W and for whatever reason, they called it a different name.

I just found this and it appears to be the same tune:

The Ballydesmond (#3) polka on The Session

The last comment on the page is:

"Ballydesmond #3

Kerry Polka, see https://thesession.org/tunes/1410 "

I have also been thinking about the folk tradition in pre-electronic technology times. It was a process of hearing and learning tunes from others and then the tunes spread around the country, then around the world and the tunes could change, the names could change, but the variations originated as one tune.

In the Australian folk tradition there is a huge Irish influence, starting with the Irish people transported out here as convicts. It's a big country out here especially when you think of it with no communications technologies to record or transmit the tunes. A musician would maybe hear a tune once or twice and then learn to play it, maybe not playing it exactly the same, and then it's like Chinese Whispers. It subtly changes as each musician hears it differently or remembers it differently, or puts his/her own spin on it.

The book which started me on my love of folk music and I used to borrow it from the library when I was in early high school, is called: Folk Songs of Australia, and the Men and Women Who Sang Them, by John Meredith and Hugh Anderson, published in 1967 by Ure Smith.

Meredith and Anderson collected the songs and tunes from traditional players around the country, and made comments on the tunes, including notes about variations in versions played by different people.

So, Kerry Polka, Salmon Tails Up the River/Water, Ballydesmond #3. Same tune, different names, I guess.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Pogues e.g Hell's Ditch instrumental
From: Helen
Date: 16 Mar 16 - 04:24 PM

On 22 Feb I said: "Also another discovery in my quest for answers: on The Red Roses for Me CD, the first track called Transmetropolitan has the tune called I'm a Man You Don't Meet Every Day at the beginning and end. This a song on their Rum, Sodomy and the Lash CD."

But after listening to the Transmetropolitan track a few times, I think that the snippet of tune at the beginning from 2 mins 50 secs to the end may be Dublin in the Rare Old Times, which makes sense because the Dublin song refers to places in Dublin and the Transmetropolitan song refers to places in London.

Also, I mentioned that I kept thinking of Yankee Doodle and I think that there is something about the Waxies Dargle track, also on the Red Roses CD, which sort of reminds me of the YD tune. Similar rhythm and/or chord progression, or something like that.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Pogues e.g Hell's Ditch instrumental
From: gillymor
Date: 21 Mar 16 - 11:48 AM

Re Transmetropolitan, you're right Helen, it sounds like a quote from A Man You Don't Meet Everyday at the intro. I'm not familiar with Dublin in the Rare Old Times but I've always loved that melody the Pogues use to finish up.

On St. Pat's Day I was fortunate to play with some excellent Irish musicians who were over here to gig around the holiday. I started playing The Recruiting Sergeant (the one off IISFFGWG) and they fell right in with it. It turns out they recognized the melody as the jig The Peeler and the Goat.

Bit of thread drift but click here for a different Recruiting Sergeant done by The Levellers with The Copper Family that they recorded for War Child.org. It sounds like a couple of bars of Mairi's Wedding at the beginning of the intro. I can't stop singing this one. Warning, this video is a bit bloody.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Pogues e.g Hell's Ditch instrumental
From: Helen
Date: 22 Mar 16 - 12:54 AM

Hi gillymor,

This is the late great Ronnie Drew, from The Dubliners, singing
Dublin in the Rare Old Times

Dublin in the Rare Old Times - a more traditional arrangement by The Dubliners

It's a beautiful song.

By the way, my Great Grandmother was a Drew whose father came to Oz from Ireland, so I'm hoping I'm related to Ronnie Drew somehow. LOL

I just found this on YouTube too:

Irish Rover performed by The Dubliners and The Pogues

I'll listen to The Levellers. It's funny, because the tune that The Pogues called The Kerry Polka on the 5 CD boxset I bought recently, also starts with a phrase which sounds like the beginning of Mairi's Wedding.

Helen

Subject: RE: Origins: The Pogues e.g Hell's Ditch instrumental
From: gillymor
Date: 22 Mar 16 - 07:54 PM

I gave "Dublin in the Rare Old Times" a listen and it sounds like you're right, Helen. That's a nice song but, uhh, given the possibility of your common ancestry, you don't sound like Ronnie Drew, do you? :)
The Irish Rover is one of the few of those old pub songs I never tire of hearing, especially that version by the Dubliners/Pogues.