Per Gringo and my conversation, in the Jug of Punch post below, it turns out that "Hearty and Hellish!" was actually the name of the album -- recorded live at a nighclub in Chicago in 1962.
"Hellish," they said. Well, "-ish" is the ultimate in approximations.
I can never tire of Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers. I first heard Tommy Makem in a box set: Folk Songs And Minstrelsy. Several years later, now in high school, I learned about Tommy Makem's teaming up with the Clancy Brothers. They are Irish songs, but they are also our songs, because the Celtic songs of Ireland and Scotland have had a great influence on our songs. Such as lyrics from Tex Ritter's Rye Whiskey also turning up in Irish songs, such as:
ReplyDelete"If you don't like me then leave me alone,"
"I'll eat when I'm hungry, I'll drink w when I'm dry
If the hard times (moonshine)don't kill me, I'll(live 'till I) lay down and die"...
"I'll tune up my fiddle and I 'll rosin my bow
I'll make myself welcome, wherever I go."
Which reminds me not of lyrics, but of a song:Rosin the bow.
I was able to get a great deal on a Tommy Maken and Clancy Brothers box set.
I can be faulted for incomplete research. I was performing some household chores when Moonshiner went through my head. I had previously posted that like Jug of Punch, Moonshiner has the line "if you don't like me then leave me alone."
ReplyDeleteTrue enough.
But it is not accurate to merely portray Moonshiner as glorifying drinking. Several days after posting about it, other verses of the song went thorough my head, including:
"Oh moonshine, dear moonshine, oh how I love thee
You killed me own father and now you'll try me...
If the moonshine don't kill me, I'll live 'till I die."
Which recognizes the destructive nature of alcohol.
At least some of the Irish drinking songs are ambivalent about alcohol- both glorifying drinking and pointing out its potential for destruction.
Come to think of it, when I was in high school, Moonshiner ranked up with Finnegan's Wake as my favorite Irish drinking songs. I recall singing snatches of it in the locker room. Without articulating it, I recognized that Moonshiner's ambivalent attitude towards alcohol mirrored my ambivalence.