Peter Duggan wrote:
benhall.1 wrote:
They seem more Scottish to me, but not quite Scottish either.
Not at all Scottish to me, Ben, though I'd agree with just about everything else you said!
Well, you're a Scot, Peter, so in this case your informed opinion doesn't count.

Some of those lyrics do give me the same impression as Ben; "From glen to glen, and down the mountainside," for example, sounds as romantically cliché-Scottish as you could ask for, at least to a Yank. And the only pipes that do any calling outdoors are the Great Pipes, wouldn't you say? Those are perennially associated with the Scots even though the Irish play them. Of course there's "And kneel and say an
Avé there for me" to whiplash us back into the intended context, but by then it's a bit late. The rest could be anyone's sugary blubbering. Now flame me.
I know a fellow who had a policy about performing the song when requested: He'd refuse unless the requesters had recently lost someone close. A bit heavy-handed - and morbid - but it satisfied him as a way to minimize singing it. For a time I adopted the same policy myself, but it was only briefly; in the end, imperiously putting requirements on the audience seemed rather a bit much when I could simply put on an innocent face and say I never learned it. Not that that ever fooled anyone. And requiring grief for a song? Just didn't seem right. But I was egalitarian about it; there was one time a requester's dog had died, and that was good enough for me. Not being a singer, I could only play the air on the flute, but there wasn't a dry eye in the house.
But we Yanks love the song soooo much. I was playing a hardcore Trad gig with the same abovementioned fellow and someone else, when a very drunk woman wobbled up to us and and said, "Do you know 'Danny Boy'? You know: (and then boisterously, with conducting motions to the tune of O Holy Night) 'Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling...'", at which point of course her rendition fell off the tracks, and she confusedly packed it in and wobbled off again. It was hilarious, but we kept our composure for good manners' sake. I don't remember if we ever did perform it in the end, but I'm assuming we didn't; after the state of that performance, one couldn't be sure it would even sink in that we were in fact playing the song she'd asked for.
Or maybe we said we already had.
westonm wrote:
Or do people think it's "overdone"?
In the States, at least, I think that's exactly the case. Which is ironic, because as you say, it seems as if no one does it! There are, I think, roughly two contexts for the issue: Those who are there foremost to entertain, and those for whom the tradition has a value that risks being cheapened by falling back on timeworn popular chestnuts. The latter bunch, obviously, are less likely to perform it.
Still and all, any Trad performer is probably going to have it in their pocket anyway. Just in case.
