Tunes to Play for St Patrick's Day

[kirksdad]

Hello MC World

We got hired out to play on the 17th of March, looking for just a few suggestions for tunes besides "Galway Girl" (Know that one already) that we could pepper throughout the set.


KD

[neil argonaut]

Well looking at your avatar, you could always go for Connemara Breakdown or Dixieland.

Depends what kind of a set it is, but if you're looking for something in the vein of Galway girl, i e with an Irish theme to it, but not a straight out traditional instrumental, you could always go for something by the Pogues or the Dubliners.

[Canoedad]

The Pogues have so many great ones. The Body of an American is one of the "smoother" ones for the Pogues. Here's a youtube with lyrics. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q97IfBOIR5Q
I always loved the thought of a Cadilac sitting outside a home in Ireland during a wake and the "tinker boys" talking about hotwiring it. Great mental image!

[Randi Gormley]

Or the Clancys -- older stuff, but songs a lot of people know and can sing along to. The few bar songs we do include "no, nay, never," "gypsy rover" and "finnigan's wake" and we tell people to sing the chorus(es) with us.

[Beanzy]

Goin' up to Monto, I'll tell me ma when I get home, The Good Ship Kangaroo, Sally Maclenanne, The Irish Rover,
Basically I won't need to be subtle on St Paddy's Day
Another thing you can do is take a current pop hit and turn it into a slip-jig. Usually gets a good reaction.

[Ed Goist]

The entire first side on 2112...
The audience won't see that coming.

[Jim MacDaniel]

Since you seem to be open to non-trad songs, in addition to Galway Girl and the Pogues, you must include Fisherman's Blues, and perhaps a few other more well known Waterboys songs. You could also have fun with songs from Van Morrison's expensive catalog, and perhaps even some U2, or even Thin Lizzy's The Boys Are Back In Town.

[Pete Summers]

Surely Irish Washerwoman.

[kirksdad]

The entire first side on 2112...
The audience won't see that coming.

I half kiddingly suggested doing Dark Side of Moon with Banjo, guitar and Mando....they of course shot that down.......


I would like to do a few sing along tunes

[Jim MacDaniel]

Check out "Pickin' on Floyd"

[jim simpson]

The Proclaimers: And I would walk 500 miles....

[Eddie Sheehy]

The Rocky Road to Dublin, Dirty Old Town, I'll tell my ma, Molly Malone, The Sweets of May, Cunla, Bean Phaidin, Arthur McBride, St. Patrick's Day, The Irish Washerwoman, Whiskey in the Jar, The Wild Rover... for starters...

[raulb]

[raulb]

[Lukas J]

The ones my band is playing for St. Paddy's includes:

-Star of the County Down
-Maid Behind the Bar
-Irish Rover
-the Wild Rover
-Finnegan's Wake
-Seven Drunken Nights
-Rocky Road to Dublin
-Dirty Old Town
-Whiskey Before Breakfast
-Whiskey in the Jar
-Red Haired Boy
-Molly Malone
-False Lady
-Kesh Jig

not all of these are 100% authentically Irish, but most are, and we've got them in the set from last year, and inviting a Bodhran playing buddy. Time to let the old tenor banjo have its moment in the spotlight!

I'd also like to do "the Broad Majestic Shannon" by Shane MacGowan, but we'll see what happens.

[allenhopkins]

Depends on what you're comfortable with. I do a bunch of St. Pat's jobs every year. The ones I do with my band Innisfree are pretty straight Celtic trad instrumentals: jigs, reels, waltzes, airs, O'Carolan harp tunes, etc.

For vocals, and especially for non-Irish audiences, I play some "jukebox Irish," and not ashamed to do so. The Chauncey Olcott standards: When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, Wild Irish Rose; rowdy sing-alongs like Wild Rover, Black Velvet Band; Clancy Brothers songs like Wild Colonial Boy, Gilgarry Mountain (Whiskey In the Jar), Jug of Punch, I'm a Rambler & Gambler, Boys Won't Leave the Girls Alone, Red Is the Rose. There are some great songs about Irish immigrants in America, but they may take some research and learning: Muirsheen Durkin, Drill Ye Tarriers, Paddy Works On the Railway, No Irish Need Apply, When McGinnis Gets A Job, By the Hush, etc. And if you want to get into contemporary songs, ones like When New York Was Irish and Kilkelly, Ireland are quite poignant and underline the Irish expatriate experience.

I don't, as a rule, do Irish rebel songs, not because they're not great songs, but because the "troubles" are still close enough to make me uncomfortable singing songs designed to get people to fight. I'll make an exception for Roddy McCorley which is more about martyrdom than about shooting Englishmen. And I love throwing in some songs with humor, like Red-Haired Mary and Martin Carthy's (and others') The Funeral, to the tune of Temperance Reel.

One little piece of advice I'd give, is to do at least a couple of familiar songs, even if they're cliches and and not your favorites. St. Pat's audiences, unless you're dealing with a hard-core Celtic crowd, do like to hear Toora Loora Loora and its ilk. One of the reasons songs become cliches, is that they're really good songs and thus get "played to death." Never hurts to revisit one of them one more time.

[John McCoy]

Ireland Forever (the soccer/football song)
The Spanish Lady
The Town That I Have Loved So Well

[neil argonaut]

The Proclaimers: And I would walk 500 miles....

I'm not sure if this is meant as a joke or not, but the Proclaimers are definitely not Irish, they're about as Scottish as you can get.

[mingusb1]

"One of the reasons songs become cliches, is that they're really good songs..."

Great point Allen, and one that is lost on so many in the oldtime and bluegrass crowd for example. Put another way, obscure tunes/songs are that for a reason.

If you're hired in a pub on St. Pat's you've got to give the crowd some familiar songs and tunes. They are there to have fun, not as an academic study of traditional music. You want them to sing (yell) along when they can.

Z

[kirksdad]

I'm not sure if this is meant as a joke or not, but the Proclaimers are definitely not Irish, they're about as Scottish as you can get.

Neil, we do that song anyways, knowing its from Scotland's own Proclaimers;

North Carolina has a heavy Scottish influence, since so many came here in the 17th and 18th century.....I'm Huntley, 17th generation father to son father to son, our family came to the Carolina via Lyme Connecticut in the 1660's.....I've been told we are part of the Gordon Clan.....I have much to learn.....

Both my brothers have been to see whats left of "Castle Huntley" I'm the only who hasn't....yet......

[Jill McAuley]

I'm a tunes type of gal meself, but if you're looking for songs then "The Auld Triangle" and "The Black Velvet Band" would be my suggestions.

Cheers,
Jill

[neil argonaut]

You may have much to learn, but you know a lot more about me, I can only trace my family back about 4 generations, at which time half were in ireland and half in scotland, but in the 1660's who knows.

[bobby bill]

Our version of London Derriere always brings the crowd to tears.

Funny - they stop crying as soon as we stop playing.

[Dan Hulse]

Depends on the crowd/venue, your style and location. Aside from the more traditional tunes already mentioned, you may wish to consider something by the Dropkick Murphys, the Tossers, Flogging Molly, the Killigans (from Omaha NE, a veritable hot bed of Irish punk) or the Dreadnoughts. Even an acoustic version of any of these groups more popular tunes would be recognised by a younger crowd. At least on this side of the pond.
I wish you mighty craic!

[Canoedad]

Man you guys 'n gals sound like a fun crowd! Good stuff all 'round.

('Cept I would't play The Town I Loved So Well to a St. Patty's night crowd. It's too long and slow for the St. Patty's rookies and the few who know what it is will be irritated that the other 90 percent is just talking all over top of it.)