Wednesday 17 March 2010

SAINT PATRICK'S DAY BLUES

PAUL BRADY AT THE TRANSATLANTIC SESSION

A song from Uncle Sam's Slavery War
but surely Irish in its subject,
its air and its melancholy.

Ain't we all, sometimes.

6 comments:

lilith said...

I love this song, but I only knew it by the Be Good Tanyas. Lush.

call me ishmael said...

I couldn't find their version but The Littlest Birds Sing The Prettiest Songs was a wee small hours delight, thanks. Never heard of them before.

Brady, though, is like a force of nature, those open tunings, that percussive style. Shame he so resembles Marty Kneecaps, though.

Anonymous said...

I'm part Celt, and that song was a hair stander, or as Ry Cooder would say "chicken skin music."

mongoose said...

Found it, Mr Ishmael. Very lovely, tahnk-you. Almost makes up for Kauto Star falling over.

mrs narcolept said...

I loved that

call me ishmael said...

I thought you might, mrs n, and I'm glad you did. It exists in lots of versions, different tempi, weird orchestrations but I think Brady has made it his own; Dylan is a big Brady fan and does some of his songs, badly.

This ensemble version, mr m, lush, as Lilith says, and chosen for Saint Patrick's Day, lacks the strength of his earlier, solo versions, in which, like King Creole, he plays his guitar like a Tommy-gun, albeit a holy, modal one. Maybe dig it out for Sunday matins, if there's any one here, readers have almost vanished, overnight, not declined, vanished.

I never knew what chicken skin music meant, mr rwg, but most of what mr cooder accomplishes, I now understand, is it.