Remember that pub in New York that banned Danny Boy last month? Well, they have now lifted the ban, as Saint Patrick's Day is safely in the rearview mirror for the year.
Danny Boy is back in the musical fold at a Manhattan pub where the familiar ballad was banned for all of March.Foley's Pub and Restaurant held a party Wednesday night to mark the end of the musical prohibition.
Danny Boy is often seen as an Irish standard, and some consider it symbolic of the Irish diaspora that began around 1850. But Foley's Irish-born owner, Shaun Clancy, calls it depressing -- and he notes that it was written by an Englishman who never set foot in Ireland.
Clancy declared Danny Boy off-limits last month, including on St. Patrick's Day.
I'd always thought of Danny Boy as a maudlin overplayed depressing song until a few years ago when I heard a version at a funeral for a co-worker. Tim was of Irish heritage and was married to a woman from Columbia, so at his funeral they played a recording of "Danny Boy" (aka The Londondeery Air) by Ruben Blades from his album "Mundo".
The first third of the song is sung in English by a female vocalist, Luba Mason, but it gradually a Latin rythym line is added and the song's second third is sung in Spanish. The finale third of the song is a rather upbeat mixture of Irish and Latin - maracas, bongos, penny whistle, bagpipes, guitar, fiddle that makes for a pretty kick ass version of the song.
Here's a link to it on YouTube. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0syM-DovJME
Check it out.
Posted by: Patrick on April 9, 2008 7:49 AM