34. You’re Not Irish

© Robbie O’Connell 1987 Slievenamon Music (BMI)

A song is like a virus. If it gets into your system it can stay in your head for weeks before it runs its course. If you are lucky it will be a song that you like and you can enjoy it. On the other hand, you can just as easily be haunted by some horrible song playing over and over in your head until you are ready to scream. A certain Barry Manilow song comes to mind but I dare not name it or even think about it or it will instantly add itself to my cerebral play list and torment me for God only knows how long.

Songs, like certain foods, also have a limited shelf life. You can love a song for years but then, just like milk eventually turns sour, you hear it just once too often and you go off it. Oddly enough this usually happens with the best songs. Because they are good songs to begin with they get played more often and then suddenly one day your ears reach saturation point and you never want to hear it again.

“Danny Boy,” is undoubtedly the world’s best-known and best-loved Irish song. Its melody is an adaptation of a traditional Irish tune, known as the “Derry Air” or sometimes the “Londonderry Air.” There are several theories about where and when it originated but many musicologists now believe that it is a variant of a tune written by Rory Dall O’Cathain, (Blind Rory Keane), a legendary Irish Harper who died in 1712. The original Gaelic words have been lost but in 1913 when Fred Weatherly, an English songwriter added new lyrics, it quickly became one of the most popular songs of all time. However, for me, it hit “saturation point” when I was about fourteen. Admittedly, mine was an unusual case. Growing up in a small hotel in Ireland where wedding receptions were a major part of the business, I heard hundreds of wedding singers mutilate the song almost every week. Every time they would reach for the high note at the end, I would picture a pole-vaulter hovering over the twenty foot bar, striving to defy gravity, for as long as possible before dropping to the ground like a deflated balloon. Then the audience, like an enthusiastic home crowd at the Olympic games, would roar their appreciation for the valiant effort.

Sad songs in general are a two edged sword for a performer. It is ironic that the better a sad song is received, the more difficult it is to follow it. It is hard to climb out of the emotional trough it creates and bring the audience back to a lighter mood. Another problem is that people hearing a sad emotional song for the first time may be greatly moved but those who have heard the song many times before may develop an urgent need to go to the toilet. This kind of ambivalence puts those who sing for a living in an awkward position. It is challenging to sing a song, knowing that some of the audience is cringing while others are enjoying it.

I was unaware of such subtleties when I first came to the USA as a college student and found work singing in Irish pubs. Everywhere I traveled, I was inundated with requests for Danny Boy. Actually, it was more of a demand than a request.

“Sing Danny Boy!”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know it.”

“What do you mean you don’t know it? Of course you know it.”

“No, I’m afraid I simply do not know the song.”

“You’re not Irish. You can’t be Irish. You don’t know Danny Boy?”

And so it went, night after night. They almost attacked me when I gave my standard response. At one point, with an eye to my safety, I actually tried to learn it but I quickly discovered that I did not have the range to sing it properly. The last thing the world needed was another bad rendition of Danny Boy so I decided instead to write a song about not singing it. In truth it would be fairer to say that the song wrote itself.

The first night I performed “You’re Not Irish” in a noisy pub in Boston, I was a little apprehensive about how the audience might react. In writing the melody, I deliberately mimicked the musical style of familiar Irish-American songs and also included some of those titles in the lyrics. I feared they might get mad at me for desecrating some of their favorite songs but luckily, some people immediately picked up on the vaudeville rhythm of the tune and started clapping along. Others just heard the familiar words, like Toora Loora Loora that seemed to blend in with the beer and the general buzz in the place. However a handful of people caught the satire in the song and smiled knowingly. I was delighted to see it working on all the different levels and I thought that at last I had the antidote to the Danny Boy request. Alas, I was sorely mistaken. For many years, I finished my concerts with “You’re not Irish.” But, unfortunately for me, it turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Invariably, as I left the stage, some wit would call out for Danny Boy as an encore and the audience would crack up. So the Danny Boy fans had the last laugh after all.

Lyrics:

YOU’RE NOT IRISH

© Robbie O’Connell 1987 Slievenamon Music (BMI)¹

When first I came to the USA with my guitar in hand
I was told that I could get a job singing songs from Ireland
So I headed up to Boston, I was sure it would be alright
But the very first night I got on the stage, I was in for a big surprise

CHORUS
They said “You’re not Irish, you can’t be Irish, you don’t know ‘Danny Boy”’
Or ‘Toora Loora Loora’ or even ‘Irish Eyes’
You’ve got a hell of a nerve to say you came from Ireland
So cut out all the nonsense and sing ‘McNamara’s Band’”

To tell the truth I got quite a shock and I didn’t know what to say
So I sang a song in Gaelic, I thought that might win the day
But they looked at me suspiciously and I didn’t know what was wrong
Then all of a sudden they started to shout“ Now sing a real Irish song”

The next day I was on my way, for Chicago I was bound
I was ready to give it another try and not let it get me down
From the stage they looked quite friendly but I’d hardly sung one word
When a voice called out from the back of the room and what do you think I heard?

Now I’ve traveled all round the country, but it’s always been the same
From LA to Philadelphia, and from Washington to Maine
But sometimes now I wonder if it’s a secret society
And it doesn’t matter wherever I go, they’ll be waiting there for me.

Saying, “You’re not Irish, you can’t be Irish, you don’t know ‘Danny Boy”’
Or ‘Toora Loora Loora’ or even ‘Irish Eyes’
You’ve got a hell of a nerve to say you came from Ireland
So cut out all the nonsense and sing ‘McNamara’s Band’”

1. PRODUCTION INFORMATION:
Robbie O’Connell - Vocal and Guitar
Produced by: Jimmy Keane
Recorded by: Gerry Putnam
Recorded before a live audience at The Old Vienna Kaffehaus, Westboro, MA
Mixed and Mastered at: CedarHouse Sound and Mastering, New Londom, NH