St. Patrick's Day Music

​Hey Everyone,
Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Hope you all had a chance to stock up on you Guinness and Tullamore dew.
I wanted to share with you some of my Favorite St. Patrick's Day/Irish songs. I have no Irish in me at all, I'm 50% Italian and the other half French and German. I always looked at St. Patrick"s day as (other than an excuse to drink Guinness) a new crop of music to discover for a few weeks out of the year, kind of like Holiday music. Irish music comes from a deep, rich tradition with some amazing songs and artists. Here are a few of my favorites.

As you probably know the Irish have had a long history of "Troubles" both at home and with England,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Troubles  
Much of traditional and current Irish music is based on the history relating to those events.

This is a great song recorded by so many artists but this version is really haunting, it's with Sinead o'Connor, the song is called "The Foggy Dew" and is about the "Easter Rebellion" in Ireland in 1916
https://www.history.com/topics/british-history/easter-rising  

The song is from the Chieftains 1995 album "The Long Black Veil"
the album features traditional Irish and American folk gems performed by the band with guest singers, Sting, Mick Jagger ect.
if you have Spotify or Apple music look them up and listen, you won't regret it.
https://youtu.be/yaS3vaNUYgs
another great one from this album is with Sting
https://youtu.be/K4gjc8p7qzo

The second artist is The Pogues who really brought traditional Irish music to a new audience in the early 1980s and really started the "punk" Irish movement of bands like "Flogging Molly" "Drop Kick Murphys" (who are actually from Boston)
I saw The Pogues at The Chestnut Cabaret in Philly years ago and I think they drank more Guinness on stage than the audience did, they were amazing though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pogues  

https://youtu.be/s11BuatTuXk

Last for now are "The High Kings", formed in Dublin in 2008 as kind of an Irish "boy band" they do more orchestrated versions of traditional Irish music, kind of what you would expect to hear from a "Disney" production, great arrangements and performances!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_High_Kings  

https://youtu.be/TV05CrUOaoc

I hope you enjoy these songs and are discovering great Irish music on your own,
There is so much out there especially this time of year,

Thanks, and I hope to see you all in class soon,
Sláinte!!
Bill
www.wekidsrock.com 
610-490-0695