On Demand
Do Irish People Hate Danny Boy ?
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Irish actor and author Malachy McCourt looks at why a midtown bar owner is banning the Irish song from his pub.
We'll Follow Up on Friday: What's your cultural equivalent to "Danny Boy"? Should it be banned or are you proud of it? Comment below.
And you asked for it: Listen here to Brian's remix of Danny Boy.
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Comments
I think it's a crummy song anyway, so I'd be tempted to go to any bar that won't play it.
I'd like to see the end of St. Patrick's Day!
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I've no idea why this is an issue worthy of any notice whatsoever. Some podunk bar "bans" a song??
It's not that the bar has a brilliant publicist, but that the media are so desperate to fill air time/inches.
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Slow news day. Everyone's gone a way. People with real lives dont care. About Albany or Maureen Dowd's hair. Can you tell me how to get. How to get to a radio station with an interesting show.
this is an absurd publicity stunt. how many times have i heard the name and address of this bar in the past few days?? it was a top story on network tv news last night and continues to pollute npr now. why do we perpetuate the publicity of drinking and bars and a pointless ple for attention by the owners of this bar?
there are real issues in the world
The irritated guy who was on had it right - Hollywood Irish.
St Patrick's Day in NY is a farce.
Every 19th generation nephew of a guy who once had a sip of Guinness is out pretending to be a leprechaun.
Hava Nagila has perhaps been played a few too many times.
Are they banning corned beef and cabbage because that is even less Irish than Danny Boy?
Great out-take.
I like rufus Wainwright's cover.
I can really identify with these sentiments. As an Italian-American, I can live the rest of my life without ever hearing Dean Martin sing "Volare"! Along with all the other sappy Italian-American, Mafia-movie stereotype garbage music.
Regarding other songs - I'm from Southern Louisiana, just outside of New Orleans - I'm so sick of "when the saints go marching in" that I have to turn it off/walk out when it comes on.
i'm with billy (#5), where should we go?
[This comment removed for not niceness and exceeding not nicety].
Here's a youtube movie of Malachy singing
Johnny, I hardly knew ye.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=gPTDqGSOldk
Yes but "O sole mio" takes the cake and don't forget "When the moon hits your eye...." Yes we have a few songs not just one.
Can we add Dominic the Italian Christmas Donkey to the banned list?
Another Danny Boy rendition by the Mupperts rendition.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCbuRA_D3KU
Being Jewish, I cringe whenever I hear Fiddler on the Roof tunes played at weddings. There is enough authentic traditional Jewish music available without relying on showtunes for ersatz authenticity. I could also happily live the rest of my life without hearing hava nagila.
Please, please, please, publish the Danny Boy compilation you signed off with. I laughed hard, and would love to have it on my iPod.
Hey people, lighten up.
Say, I'm Polish from Pittsburgh and I've heard "Roll Out the Barrel" a million times. Then there's the Steelers Fight Song, based on the Pennsylvania Polka, I believe:
We're from the town with the great football team
We love our Pittsburgh Steelers!
etc. etc.
Also heard plenty of In Heaven There is No Beer (That's Why We Drink It Here).
But you know what? They don't bother me. They're silly and fun. Maybe that's what's wrong with Danny Boy. It's too maudlin and serious.
Bobby Vinton's, (the "Polish Prince") song, "My Melody of Love." Also, "Beer Barrel Polka", (also known as "Roll Out the Barrel"), which is played during the seventh inning stretch at Milwaukee Brewers baseball games.
Keep the Song bann Malachy McCort. And lete writing be done by brother Frank.
"La Cumparsita" must be banned - It's a sub-par tango that gets so heavily overused and massacred by people who haven't a clue that tango was the rap of turn-of-the-century Buenos Aires - not a love ballad, aria d'amour, or serenade!
"Cambalache" is a *real* tango. The suite "Las 4 Estaciones Porteñas" are *real* tangos. Even "El Tigre Millán" is a far superior work than the generic, lowest common denominator, stock audio that is "La Cumparsita".
Unless you're doing documentaries on tango, PLEASE let this song die a lonely death.
re: Dominic the Christmas Donkey, from
"Italian Americans and Their Public and Private Life" Chapter 20:
SOUTHERN ITALIAN-AMERICAN COMEDY: THE CASES OF MATTEO CANNIZZARO, LOU MONTE, LOUIS PRIMA, AND DOM DELUISE. Authors; Salvatore Primeggia, Floyd Vivino, Joseph A. Varacalli
"An important theme in Monte's Italian-American humor is his tendency to Italian-Americanize American history and life. Such a technique served this marginal ethnic group by making it feel a part of America’s early historical development. It also served to heighten a sense of in-group solidarity by the ludicrous layering of Italianicity on things supposedly rock-solid Anglo-Saxon. In one song, he asks the question, "What did Washington say when crossing the Delaware?” The answer: “Fa un’fridd! (It’s cold!).” This bit is a take-off on a joke which was popular in the Italian- American community, although Monte sanitized the coarser punch line.” In this way, he played to the Italian-American audience, knowing its members would enjoy and relate to the reference.” In another example, according to Monte, the name of Paul Revere’s horse was Baccigallup. The hit song, “Please Mr. Columbus” offers yet another of Monte’s unique historical interpretations."
you can read the Mnte bit in ch. 20 here:
http://www.loumonte.com/
As a Irish-American (small "i", large "A"), I really agree with the people who would ban St. Patrick's Day as irrelevant to our culture in the U.S. at this time. I loved the quote from Malachi McCourt (whom I call a "professional Irishman") about the Irish "enjoying remembering tragedy", or something to that effect. Indeed, he is right about our excessive sentimaentality. Yes, the Irish are stereotyped "ad nauseum". I once told an American gentleman about a friend of mine who had married an Irishman who doesn't drink alcohol. His reply was, "Impossible...no such Irishman exists".
C'est la vie. All nationalities are stereotyped. Lighten up, folks!
ITALIANS LOVE THE CHICKEN DANCE BUT HAVE RECENTLY BEEN TRYING TO HIDE THE FACT BY REQUESTING IT NOT BE PLAYED AT WEDDINGS.
Connie,
The IRISH enjoy remembering tragedy?
I remember as a kid showing my grandmother a postage stamp from Greece that commemorated Sophocles. She said with real embarrassment, "The Greeks are so DRAMATIC." I thought she was being quite dismissive of the intent to honor great tragedy, but 20 years later, in New York, I had the privilege of watching The National Theatre Company of Greece perform "Oepidus Rex" to an audience that included a disproportionate number of Greek immigrants. It was a great performance, and we were all.... crying out eyes out. Guess Grandma was right, embarrassingly, playing to stereotype can provide a certain in-group "katharsis". Then again, I caught some blond, midwestern looking women who were also sopping wet with tears after that play, and there weren't no onions involved...
Eva,
That is the first time in YEARS I've seen that word..."katharsis"! Must have been a great experience. I remember going to a Greek tragedy at the City Center a long time ago. The performance was in contemporary Greek and I had rented a audio gadget to translate. The thing I remember most about it is that the person I was with fell asleep and began to snore aloud (So much for my choice of theater-going companions!) Back to the subject...I guess some human emotions are universal.
Thanks for your comment.
Connie,
I love it! We must be bringing the same guy to those plays.
Thanks for the story. I think City Center has supertitles for those Greek plays now?
Or they're finally doing them in English for those of us who didn't study the classics at some English prep school in the 1920's (or didn't just stagger off a boat from Cyprus.) Either way, I'm with you on the universality bit.
I agree with Dan @23 -- I don't want to hear anything from Fiddler on the Roof if I'm not actually sitting in a theatre. There's too much good stuff out there (I'm a klezmer fan) to want to listen to "Sunrise Sunset" for the thousand-and-first time.
My American pop cultural equivalent to Danny Boy . . . well there are many . . . here's a few from a list my friends and I have been compiling called:
Songs you've come to hate . . . but still sound great . . . when your face is in your plate (i.e. BLOTTO!!!):
Layla
Free Bird
Stairway To Heaven
It's My Party
Hey Jude
Seasons In The Sun
Bennie And The Jets
Cheers!
Charlie at the Jersey Shore
That's my cousin's pub!!!
That's my cousin!!!
Brilliant Sean! Danny Boy isn't an Irish tune and therefore it doesn't belong in an Irish pub on St Patrick's Day. End of story. Our fathers are proud.
The schmaltziest version of Danny Boy I ever heard was by Danny Thomas when he sang it at the conclusion of an appearance on the Mike Douglass show.
i AM DELIGHTED TO BE ABLE TO VOICE MY OPINION RE: THE cHANNUKAH "SONG" ...i HAVE A LITTLE dREIDL"....(AD nAUSEUM)...IT HAS PLAGUED ME AND OTHER CHILDREN FOR YEARS....DONT WE HAVE A CHRISTIAN EQUIVALENT OF iRVING bERLIN WHO WILL COME UP WITH A CHANNUKAH SONG AS APPEALING AS "WHITE CHRISTMAS"?
"Guantanamera" has been ruined for me by Anglos who sing it as "one Ton Tomato." It is a beautiful ove song but others have ruined it for me.
Gunatanamera has been ruined for me by people who sing it as "One Ton Tomato." It is truly a beautiful love song but it is so overoplayedand badly too that it should be banned.
This thread is closed.
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