47. The Singer

© Robbie O’Connell 1988 Slievenamon Music (BMI)

When I was young, most people were expected to know a few songs that they could trot out at a social gathering or pub session. It was usually known as a party piece. I presume it was a carry-over from the pre-radio days before popular music became a commodity and people were accustomed to making their own entertainment.

I grew up in a house where a session could happen at the drop of a hat, and frequently did. Three or four people and a few drinks was all it usually took to reach ignition point. Even as a toddler, I had been taught a recitation about a mischievous goblin that, much to my chagrin and embarrassment, I would be prevailed upon to perform for visiting relatives. As a chronically shy introvert, I learned to cope with such pressures by only agreeing to do the recitation from the comparatively safe space underneath a table. Oddly, that reluctance to intrude personality into performance was often seen and admired in traditional singers and considered a hallmark of the style. It was always supposed to be about the song and not the singer, a polar opposite from modern commercial fare where it’s almost de rigueur for singers, specially females, to perform in their underwear.

In the 1960s, the folk revival, or the ballad boom as it was known in Ireland, gave a fresh impetus to the amateur singer to develop a repertoire of songs. Around the same time, American country music had become increasingly popular in rural Ireland so it wasn’t unusual to hear traditional Irish songs and country songs sung, side by side, in pubs across the country. Singers like Johnny Cash and Jim Reeves dominated the airwaves and their songs were copied throughout the country, complete with what passed for the American twang.

The upsurge of the Irish showband scene in the 1960s, even led to a hybrid genre known as Country & Irish, as distinct from Country Western. Some of the most successful practitioners of this style such as Big Tom from the Mainliners showband, generated the kind of public hysteria that was only associated with the Beatles and Elvis Presley. I witnessed this spectacle first hand when Big Tom arrived at our little family hotel one evening looking for a meal. The girls who waited on the tables began screaming hysterically and almost had to be sedated before they could calm down enough to serve him. Ironically, he was a modest man who when someone once asked him how he had become so successful replied, “Shit lucky, boy. Shit lucky.”

Meanwhile, as Ireland embraced American County music, people from New York to California were becoming enthralled by the Irish ballads being sung by the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem and others. By 1963 these songs made a return to Ireland too and added to the musical stew that contained so many diverse elements. Little known Australian songs like the Wild Rover and the Black Velvet Band joined in the mix and instantly became “Irish” songs to the ears of the general population. It was a fascinating musical melting pot that became my main musical education.

Memories of such times, partly inspired me to write The Singer. The other motivation was the pitifully small amount of Irish music that was played on RTE, Ireland’s national radio station in the closing decades of the twentieth century. Other than on R na G, the Irish language radio station that began in 1972, there was hardly more than an hour or two of Irish music played weekly on the country’s flagship station, RTE 1. On a visit home to Ireland in the 1990s, I was amazed, and somewhat bewildered, to hear American country songs on R na G being sung in the Irish language but with American accents. The mind boggles. I also found it strange that I could hear more Irish music on the airwaves in the greater Boston area in one weekend than I could hear on RTE 1 in several months.

After WW2, a massive wave of American pop culture spread across the world. Hollywood movies, US television shows, and rock music, in particular, were embraced by countries as diverse as England and Japan. Living in the USA from 1979 until 2019 made me very conscious of the cultural cross pollination that was happening. Having a foot in two different cultures gave me a unique point of view, sometimes enlightening, sometimes frightening. Hearing Irish people sing with American accents and Americans sing with Irish accents was one of the obvious peculiarities but there were more significant aspects that I found troubling. The erosion of respect for the musical heritage of other nations by the American juggernaut caused significant damage to ethnic cultures worldwide.

In Ireland today, the corporate media outlets generally treat our native culture as a nostalgic relic to be dusted off for the tourists, specially around St. Patrick’s Day but kept safely in the background otherwise. Ironically, despite this corporate dismissal, Irish traditional music has never been healthier or more vibrant but only to a small percentage of the population. A study of the sales in Irish music stores showed that the homegrown product rarely rose above 5% of total sales. That included artists as diverse as U2 and the Chieftains and everything in between. Most of the touring Irish musicians make the bulk of their income outside Ireland because that is where the market for it lies. It seems so strange that Irish music has to be exported to find a large audience and maintain its authenticity.

Lyrics:

THE SINGER

© Robbie O’Connell 1988 Slievenamon Music (BMI)¹

“Well, hello there, how're you doing?" that was all he said at first
Then he moved a little closer saying, "I think I'm dying of thirst"
I asked him if he'd have a pint but he just shook his head
Then he grinned at me and said, "I think I'll have a drop instead"
He asked me where I came from as we had a little taste
I told him not too far from there, though I now lived in the States
I said I was a singer and I wasn't home for long
Did he know anyone who still might a few old songs

CHORUS
He said I'm not much for telling jokes and I never learned to dance
But I could sing the night away if you'd give me half a chance
If I had some lubrication for the muscles in my throat
I'd sing out like a sparrow and I'd never miss a note

So I ordered up another round thinking I had just struck gold
And I asked him if he'd sing a song maybe something kind of old
He said he had a million and a special one for me
He sang "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree"
So I smiled at him, said that was nice, had he any other songs
He suggested that another drop might help his memory on
He asked if I knew Johnny Cash or ever met Tom Jones
Then he sang me forty shades of "The Green Green Grass of Home"

Well I knew I was in trouble but I didn't want to quit
I thought it still might be worthwhile if I hung in for a bit
But the bar had filled with people who were calling out for more
And when he sang "One Day At a Time, Sweet Jesus", I had to go
But I still had to wait through one more Willy Nelson song
Then I made a quick escape and said I had to ramble on
If I wanted to hear old songs, well I knew just where to go
I'd hear them back in Boston, playing on the radio.

1. PRODUCTION INFORMATION:
Robbie O’Connell: Vocals, guitar
Tim Britton: Uilleann pipes, whistles
Johnny Cunningham: Fiddles
Seamus Eagan: Flute
Richard Gates: Bass
Mance Grady: Bodhrán, African drum
Jimmy Keane: Accordion
Billy Novick: Saxophone, clarinet
Tom O’Carroll: Banjo
Brian O’Neill: Keyboards
Ruth Rothstein: French horn
John Sands: Drums
Produced by Johnny Cunningham
Recorded at Wellspring Sound Studio, Nonantum, Massachusetts
Engineers: Huck Bennert, Eric Kilburn