Brennan on the Moor

I linked yesterday to a YouTube clip of Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy singing "Rambles of Spring." That's just one of a whole new treasure trove of Clancy/Makem video clips that have been recently uploaded to YouTube. You might recall that I posted a bunch of clips last August, after Makem's death, but a lot of new videos have appeared since then. Here's another one, a real oldie but goodie, showing a much younger foursome singing "Brennan on the Moor" in 1963:

That, incidentally, is -- like the Kingston Trio's "M.T.A." -- one of my favorite songs to sing to Loyette. Hey, just because I'm a lawyer doesn't mean I can't teach my daughter a "good, healthy disrespect for law!" Hee hee. Actually, I just like singing it to her because it's fun, bouncy and repetitive. No doubt I'll regret this when she gets a little older and, just like I did when I was little, starts bursting out in bawdy Irish songs at inappropriate moments. :) History repeats itself in the new generation...

Comments

[Joe Loy]

Well, to balance off the Bawdies why don't you add to Loyette's future repertoire the anthem of the Lads' venture into the Fossil Fuels business :}, iow the Corporate side of the rebel Clancys&Makem: Tommy M's little-known late-'60's Paean to the mighty Petrol tankers of Gulf Oil, which the company featured in an NBC commercial to celebrate the coming of the black ships of Umbar its fleet to the coast of the fair County Cork (link below is to YouTube):

I'm an able bodied sailor and I've often crossed the line
On whaling ships and sailing ships and ships of every kind
But now I've got the very best job I've had for many a day
I'm workin' on a tanker bringing oil to Bantry Bay

[chorus:]
Bringin' home the oil, me boys, bringin' home the oil!
Sailin' all around the world, bringin' home the oil!
A' workin' on a giant ship, it's very hard we toil,
Sailin' into Bantry Bay, bringin' home the oil!

She is the biggest ship me lad that's ever sailed the sea
But graceful as a swan she goes, we sail her at our ease
From Araby around Cape Hope we proudly make our way
And keep all Europe moving from our base in Bantry Bay

[chorus]

They're building other tankers now to speed more oil to you
The Universe Kuwait, me lads, Japan and Portugal too
Also the Universe Ireland, I'm very proud to say
Is among the giant ships that's bringin' oil to Bantry Bay

[chorus]

"...crossed the line" indeed, Tommy :}. But not "often", to be sure. Just This One Time. [Apologies to Don Michael ;] And after all, there was a wee celtic tigercub to be midwifed & nurtured :>.

I've never found this catchy ditty in any CBros &/or TM recording or website or songbook, nor heard it in live performance. It's actually a prettygood song but I think maybe the Boys buried it. / Perhaps just as well, since some 10 years on from that Gulf ad, an oil tanker at Whiddy Island in Bantry Bay exploded in "the worst maritime disaster in Irish history" so the song's associations could have turned pretty sour & sad. / Hm. Maybe leave it out of Loyette's lyrical inheritance, after all.

[Joe Loy]

But now for something Considerably different :}, here are two fine nonClancyMakem (!! :) performances: "MacPherson's Rant" by the UNC Achordants (note the excellent a capella Bagpipe accompaniment :); and "Mrs. McGrath" as powerfully, albeit controversially, interpreted by The Boss..