The Danny Boy Poll

[Innocent Bystander]

So we have a few versions of Danny Boy. I was always confusticated by the different versions. So what do yez think? Does it matter? Which words?
Should yez only sing it in Irish, so? Or just play the tune?

What about the Clancey's cheeky pastiche of it? Gods and Goddesses, there must be a million pastiches of Danny Boy...

Anyway, whaddayez think?

[Dale]

No problem with that tune other than overexposure, I guess. From time to time, I can suppress the image of crying men in pubs and bars long enough to try to hear the tune objectively and it's not so bad.

Now "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling"...that one induces seizures in me.

[mcurtiss]

I prefer this version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCbuRA_D3KU


edit: ha!!! just saw the other thread!!!!

[dubhlinn]

I've always thought it to be a great, great song. It has been kicked to death a million times through schmaltzy arrangements and overpowering tenors.
Strip it down to a good strong voice and a very simple backing and you have a wonderfully expresssive and emotional song.
It is a bit of a shame that the original "Derry Air" will always be associated with "Danny Boy" but there is no going back now I suppose.

Here's a very moving version..


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=852gverKRPo

Slan,
D.

[izzarina]

I'm actually learning this one on the fiddle (Derry Air, actually)...with my daughter on the melody and I on the harmony. We're not qutie up to par yet, but you can already hear the beauty in it. It's quite a nice little tune, really.

As for Danny Boy, I typically can't listen to it, but Eva Cassidy does a great version of it that's well worth listening to...at least in my not so humble opinion

[izzarina]

Here's a very moving version..


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=852gverKRPo

Slan,
D.

Good thing I didn't post the YerTube link too

[Innocent Bystander]

Now "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling"...that one induces seizures in me.

It's "Donald whaurs yer troosers" that makes my flesh crawl, which must be an ethnological litmus test, of sorts. A fellow I knew in Edinburgh could reduce me to incoherence by saying calmly "Harry Lauder! Now he was a real Scotsman!"

[Redwolf]

If it's any help, the original Derry Air sounds almost nothing like "Danny Boy." Which is a good thing, because, frankly, that schmaltzy, Anglicized tune makes me want to cut my own throat.

Redwolf

[izzarina]

If it's any help, the original Derry Air sounds almost nothing like "Danny Boy." Which is a good thing, because, frankly, that schmaltzy, Anglicized tune makes me want to cut my own throat.

Redwolf

Right up there with "The Irish Rover" huh?

[fearfaoin]

I don't know of the Clancey's version. I guess I missed out

[s1m0n]

Should yez only sing it in Irish, so?

In Irish it's a melody, not a song.

~~

But its unfortunate that the correct name for one of the world's great melodies is 'The Derrière".

[djm]

In Irish it's a melody, not a song.

Not true. In Irish, the same tune is used over and over again (if it's a good'un) for many sets of lyrics/songs. The problem for us is that the Irish themselves didn't write anything down. The collectors that eventually went out and wrote stuff down starting in the 18th-19th centuries based what they gathered on artificial terms to their own liking, so that some gathered tunes but not the lyrics, some the lyrics but not the tune, etc. It may well be that there are several sets of lyrics for the Backside of London, and multiple permutations of the original tune to fit each set of lyrics, but no accurate record was ever kept.

The "official" lyrics to Danny Boy as written by English lawyer Frederick Weatherly have it as:

Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountainside.
The summer's gone, and all the roses falling.
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow,
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow.
Oh Danny Boy, Oh Danny Boy, I love you so.

But if you come and all the flow'rs are dying
And I am dead, as dead I well may be,
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an Ave there for me.

And I shall hear, though soft your tread above me,
And then my grave will warmer, sweeter be,
For you will bend and tell me that you love me,
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.

Alternative lyrics for last two lines:

And you'll not fail to tell me that you love me,
I'll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.

djm

[s1m0n]

In Irish it's a melody, not a song.

It may well be that there are several sets of lyrics for the Backside of London, and multiple permutations of the original tune to fit each set of lyrics, but no accurate record was ever kept.

My mistake. However, singing hypothetical lyrics is trickier than you'd think.

[peeplj]

Sung well, this can be a lovely song.

I think it's true that it suffers from overexposure. It also suffers from a surplus of people who think that they can sing it quite well after drinking three or more beers....

--James

[Nanohedron]

No problem with that tune other than overexposure, I guess. From time to time, I can suppress the image of crying men in pubs and bars long enough to try to hear the tune objectively and it's not so bad.

Now "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling"...that one induces seizures in me.

Ha! A band I'm in actually DOES "Irish Eyes". Our purpose is, in a word, evil. We bloat the music-hall parody so much that you'd want go up to the bar and ask the bartender for a shot......of insulin. It's got your hackneyed banjo and cittern string tremolos, overindulgently rubato delivery morphing into a mug-swinging chorus, and all the while the wee tinwhistle makes twittery bluebird-of-happiness noises. It's so saccharine, you can't not get the joke. You'd love it thru the pain, Dale. Trust me.

And we do "Danny Boy", too! Starts out with the usual choirboy sweetness, but right fast swings into a driving 6/8 Doo-Wop groove juggernaut. If you haven't heard it, you haven't lived.

Rockin' the Tradition.