Rehearsed last night with a quartet to play in a local Irish pub. We discussed all the old standards that have been around forever,
Wild Colonial Boy
Whiskey in the Jar etc
but I’ve enjoyed looking up more current Irish artists
Mary Black, Chris Moore has some great songs. Go Move Shift is awesome.
Someone mentioned that A John Prine Song “The Speed of The Sound of Loneliness”
was huge in Ireland so we’re doing that.
So UK Dopers , Irish Dopers, or fans of the genre, what are some of the more recent {within 5 to 10 years} songs that have been big in Ireland by Irish artists. What old classics are still very popular in the pubs. What do people sing live.
U2 maybe?
Some folks from British airways taught me some dirty verses to “Ghost Riders in the Sky” some years ago and they still work. Off color or suggestive pub songs welcome. Audience participation is good.
Singing songs ‘arand-tha-piyana’ is a bit of a dead art in the UK. If you find a pub with live music, it will either be an Irish-themed place or some dodgy local group singing pop classics from the 70s.
Classic British pub songs focus on the era around WWI and II - “It’s a long way to Tipperary”, “Roll out the barrel”, “Pack up your troubles in yer old kit back”, but you don’t hear these anymore outside of Eastenders
20 years ago I used to frequent a pub with a regular, popular, guitar singer – his most popular pub songs were “Dirty Old Town” (which is actually an English, not Irish, song) and “American pie”
If a song by a Scotsman about Aussies and wonderfully performed by the Pogues counts, I’d say that for a quiet part of the set “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” is incredible for a pub band.
Crazy World by Aslan was huge. Any Irish person in the room would be able to sing along. Even if they weren’t a fan of Aslan it was impossible to avoid for years and is still played a lot here.
It’s sang a fair bit in pubs I’ve been in. Luke’s performance is world class, I prefer this video though as you get to see the performance. Luke kicks in 19 secs in.
Interesting. I just learned Dirty Ole Town. I’'ve done American Pie for a long time. It was a huge favorite song along at colleges years ago. Haven’t tried it in a while.
