There’s no fool like an old fool, they say, so what happens when a bunch of oul’ coots gather together to make music? The next batch of posts may enlighten you as to the question just posed and may also, perhaps, enrage or entertain. Anything’s better than a yawn, I guess. And everything that is not that bloody virus is a plus. At the moment we can’t meet as a group, as we are in lockdown, so I have set out a version of songs that are in our repertoire but which have not yet been recorded. With any luck (and, as three of us are north of 70, we’ll need it!) we will be able to resume our normal practice of meeting weekly and playing tunes, singing songs and generally enjoying the crack.
The Sea Around Us– Although he died over 30 year ago, the songs of Dominic Behan continue to be played around the world, especially by Irish bands and performers. Notable songs include, The Patriot Game (which he claimed, with much justification, was plaigarised by Bob Dylan for God On Our Side.), McAlpine’s Fusiliers, of which you’ll find a version elsewhere on the site, and Come Out Ye Black and Tans. He was a committed socialist and republican and he had a wide network of friends and collaborators in the media politics and arts. The verse below, from this song, demonstrates his acerbity and humour: Two foreign old monarchs in battle did join/Each wanting his head on the back of a coin;/If the Irish had sense they’d drowned both in the Boyne/And partition thrown into the ocean. One summer in the mid-sixties, my brother and I hitch-hiked to Bundoran, a holiday town on the Atlantic coast of Donegal. We stopped into a church hall to hear Dominic Behan perform: still a happy memory.
The notes above are taken from another version of the song on this site. A Bit of Banter- 63 features Sam the Man singing for a session we had almost a decade ago. Here, still in lockdown, I felt the urge to set it down again, and I think it can bear the repetition.
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