There’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots (+ one middle aged son) gather together to make music? The next series of posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. These songs were the result of a few sessions around a table laden with alcoholic beverages of various kinds. Plonked in the centre of the table is, now, an iPad with connected mic that has somehow survived the knocks and spillages that are part and parcel of the sessions. So here we are, up and running again…
Song 60: Ballyhootry– I wrote this back in the mid-1990s. I must have fallen out on the wrong side of the bed that day because I created a town called Ballyhootry in the County Anywhere. I let fly at the ersatz Irish or Oirishry so beloved by Hollywood B-movies and songs. You know, where leprechauns frolic at the ends of rainbows and the beer is dyed green and quaintness rules the day to the deedle-lee-dee tootling of a tin whistle. Also a target is the rampant commercialism where Mammon trumps Tradition every time. (the use of the previous verb is not coincidental, by the way). FYI, I still love Ireland, her blemishes notwithstanding, but I live in Australia now and consider it home- for all its imperfections. The song here is not backed by Banter but Band-in-a-Box because we have not yet recorded any version of the song, even though we’ve play it enough in the past. I’ll update, when or if we ever get round to it. In the meantime, enjoy a more rocky rendition than is heard in our acoustic oeuvre.
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