Shane MacGowan

Listen to Shane Mac’s “Fairytale” and more from our Mariah Carey-less Top 30 Christmas songs!

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Rest in Peace, Kirsty McColl and Shane MacGowan. Thank you for “Fairytale”

By Dai Bando published 12/20/2021 (updated 11/30/2023)

There are five new additions to my annual “Greatest Christmas Songs” list, now thirty songs in total! This is disconcerting, since my original raison d’être was that there are only about ten good Christmas songs. Then ten became fifteen, then twenty-five, and now thirty.

So, I appear to be wr…wr… challenged, in my original belief.

Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is not on the list, despite the fact that the song has had 309 million streams across all platforms in the US. In truth, there’s probably a dearth of “uber-hits” here, with the exception of the classics from Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole. But there are beautiful hymns, traditional carols and several slightly obscure Christmas pop chestnuts. Sorry, Mariah – you don’t make the cut this year.

We lost some wonderful performers from the list post-Covid, notably Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains, Nanci Griffith, Sinead O’Connor and only yesterday, the legendary Shane MacGowan. Rest in Peace and thank you for your music.

30. “Simple Gifts” performed by YoYo Ma and Alison Krauss

“Simple Gifts” is special to me because it was performed at my daughter’s annual school holiday concert. At “Lumina,” the senior girls would sing in candlelight procession, entering a building packed with smartly dressed parents and grandparents – none wearing face-masks, because this would’ve appeared simply nutters ten years ago. Ah, those carefree days of 2011!

“Simple Gifts” was written in 1848. The lyrics are:

“’Tis the gift to be simple, ’tis the gift to be free
’Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
‘Twill be in the valley of love and delight.”

Finding ourselves “where we ought to be” – what could be a more wonderful Christmas gift than that?

On this recording, Yo Yo Ma contributes his masterful cello playing while Alison Krauss adds her typically sublime vocals. Such an extraordinary ode to simplicity!

A Christmas Quiz:

“Simple Gifts” was written in 1848 by:
A. Barbeque Bob
B. Shaker Elder Joseph Brackett
C. Bumblebee Slim

29. Auld Lang Syne” performed by Johnny Cunningham and Susan McKeown

I find New Years as much a spiritual time as Christmas, perhaps even more so. This version of Robert Burns “Auld Land Syne” includes both Burns’ original Scottish melody, as well as the familiar Guy Lombardo update.
“We’ll tak a cup of kindness yet” – how beautiful! I was fortunate to see the late Johnny Cunningham and Irish singer Susan McKeown perform together at a small garden concert some years ago – a treasured memory. Rest in Peace, Johnny. Slàinte Susan!

28. “I’m Gonna Lasso Santa Claus” performed by Brenda Lee

I first heard this novelty when it was featured in the 1988 film The Accidental Tourist, with actress Geena Davis singing these goofy lyrics while baking Christmas cookies. At the amazing age of nine (!), Brenda Lee recorded “Lasso Santa Claus” – two full years before recording her better-known hit “Rockin Around the Christmas Tree.” The only younger performer on my list here is probably “Cindy-Lou Who” who sings backup on “Dah Who Doraze”, but since the Whos’ ages are measured in ‘dog years’, she was technically seventy-five.)

I love the musicianship on “Lasso”, notably Nashville legend Don Helms playing that tasty double-neck steel guitar (Helms played in Hank Williams band and recorded with Hank, Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash.)

I also I love the woke lyric:
“Then I’ll take his bags of toys and run
And bring to all the kids who don’t have none”

Hellsyeah, Brenda! Power to the people. Stick it to the man!

Read more: Listen to Shane Mac’s “Fairytale” and more from our Mariah Carey-less Top 30 Christmas songs!

#27 “Snowfall” performed by Ahmad Jamal Trio

Written by husband-wife team of Claude and Ruth Thornhill, this song is perfect for your Christmas cocktail Jazz party. Your guests will ask, “Is this a bonus track from Charlie Brown’s Christmas?” And you can pour a martini and reply, “I should say not! This is a 1958 live performance by the Ahmad Jamal Trio !” (If in Glasgow, add “… ya clueless bawbag!”)

“Snowfall” has been recorded by Tony Bennet and Wes Montgomery, as well as “Enoch Light and the Light Brigade” and NRBQ (wouldn’t those two bands have been a great twin-bill live show?)

Ahmad Jamal’s evocative instrumental version is my favorite rendition of this tune. You can almost see the snowflakes falling – am I right?

#26 Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel (traditional)


I’ve seen it written that this hymn has an “undeniably spooky quality to it” and I can’t disagree. The music is set in a minor key, and the lyric speaks of “mourning in lonely exile”, a mention of a ransom, and who is this mal hombre Emmanuel, anyway? Listen to the eerie church organ in this recording by The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge. I almost expect to see the camera pan to reveal Vincent Price playing!

In the Book of Isaiah, the prophesied messiah is called Emmanuel, which means means “God is with us.” I like that. It’s exactly where God oughta be.

Original titled “Veni Veni Emmanuel” this dates back to the twelfth century, and as we all know, the good Christians of 12th century really had their shit together when it came to producing beautiful hymns, majestic cathedrals and bloody crusades.

The darkness in this song, described as “mingled joy and sorrow performed in a minor key”, agrees with Christmas in the age of Covid. Yet the song reminds us, God is with us.

More about this song at America: The Jesuit Review

25. “2000 Miles” – The Pretenders (1983)

A beautiful Christmas song by Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, written for the band’s founding guitarist James Honeyman-Scott who died 1983 at 25 years old, the year the song was written. (Robbie McIntosh replaced him and plays a magnificent lead here.) Chrissie’s vocals and Robbie’s guitars create a holiday masterpiece that’s full of both melancholy and hope.

“And these frozen and silent nights
Sometimes in a dream
You appear
Outside under the purple sky
Diamonds in the snow
Sparkle”

Chrissie’s heartfelt lyrics remind me of Pablo Nurado’s poem about death, grief and ultimately living, The Dead Woman:

“Forgive me If you are not living
If you, beloved, my love,
If you have died
All the leaves will fall on my breast
It will rain on my soul all night, all day
My feet will want to march
to where you are sleeping
But I shall go on living”

24. The Wexford Carol (traditional)

This is one of the oldest carols, originating from County Wexford, Ireland. The recording is from The Chieftains “Bells of Dublin” LP, which I consider indispensable for holiday gatherings.

We recently lost Paddy Moloney and Nanci Griffith who perform on this track from The Bells of Dublin. They were each great ambassadors of their particular brands of folk music. Rest in Peace.

23.“River” – Joni Mitchell (1971)

One my very favorite performers from the ‘60s, Joni Mitchell wrote this heartbreaking song which first appeared on her classic album ‘Blue’. I love “River, “from the ‘jingle bells’ piano intro to Joni’s lyric “I wish I had a river I could skate away on.” Who hasn’t wished for this during this Covid winter?

22. Jingle Bells (with “Batman smells” verse)

“Jingle Bells” was written by James Lord Pierpont in 1857. I believe Pierpont’s song is best appreciated when performed by frozen-mitten wearing kids singing at the top of their lungs, and adding the “Batman smells” verse.
What 5th grade boy hasn’t sung “jingle bells, batman smells” while huddled in the wintry schoolyard with his pal Tommy, lusting after Mrs. Fouch – the only teacher at St. Peters who wasn’t a nun. (OK, maybe that was just me and Tommy Tanner, but you get the idea.)
The first version of the Batman Smells verse surfaced in the 1966 Christmas season when the Batman TV show (with Adam West – the greatest Batman) was becoming a massive hit. “Batman Smells” was further glorified by Bart Simpson in “The Simpsons Christmas Special,” in December of 1989. Lisa Simpson was undoubtedly wishing for a river she could skate away on.

21. “Greensleeves” (traditional)

I fell in love with this song at the afternoon matinee showing of “How the West Was Won” at the the Warwick Cinema, back when and a box of popcorn cost 50 cents and the longer movies such as this one had “Intermissions.” In the 1962 movie, Debbie Reynolds sings “A Home in the Meadow,” which was essentially the music of “Greensleeves” with American frontier lyrics added by Tin Pan Alley songman Sammy Cahn. What’s that got to do with Christmas? As Yukon Cornelius might say, “Nuthin!” But read on!

The original “Lady Greensleeves” was an English folk song dating back to 1580. There is a some belief that the ballad was actually composed by Henry the VIII who was an accomplished musician before he got fat and nasty. (He was said to be a wiz on the tennis court, too – imagine that!) Now, at that time in England, to label a woman “green sleeves” was meant to suggest she was prone to enjoying a roll around in the grass (getting green stains on her… well, you get the idea.) So this song was a 16th century “I’m too sexy for my shirt.”

Fast forward to 1865 when Christian hymn writer William Chatterton Dix thought it prudent to remove the randy “green sleeves” reference altogether and rename the song “What Child Is This?”- a question that can indeed follow a roll in the grass, I suppose.

I love Greensleeves best without any lyrics – either played unadorned on acoustic guitar or the orchestral version by Ralph Vaughan Williams. And thank you Debbie Reynolds, mostly for giving us Carrie Fisher. What child was that one!

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Kirsty MacColl’s Voice Was Singular. A New Box Aims to Bring It Wider

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The singer-songwriter, who died in 2000, is best known for duetting on “Fairytale of New York.” But in an unusual career, she also made her mark behind the scenes.

By Bob Mehr

During a fitful 20-year solo career, the singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl released just five full-length albums, achieving a modicum of success in her native England, and little notice in America. Yet MacColl — who died at 41 in 2000 — is omnipresent each holiday season: It’s her voice offering tart rejoinders to Shane MacGowan in the Pogues’ cockeyed Christmas anthem “Fairytale of New York.”

But the woman with the soaring alto, whom Bono once called “the Noelle Coward of her generation,” was far more than her best-known work. Last week, Universal released “See That Girl: 1979-2000,” an eight-disc boxed set with 161 tracks that follows MacColl’s musical journey — which included an attempt at teen pop stardom, years of accomplished studio craft and global musical exploration.

Those who knew her best, including the folk-punk musician Billy Bragg, have long extolled MacColl’s fierce wit, spiky charisma and gift for sharp-detailed songwriting. “It was all about attitude with Kirsty,” Bragg said in an interview. “Her personality came across so strongly in the songs.”

But her career was sporadic and often secondary to her family obligations, and her untimely passing precluded the usual late-career reappraisal and appreciation. “See That Girl” not only recovers many of MacColl’s lost recordings, but puts her in conversation with bold female singer-songwriters of today who perhaps unknowingly bear her influence.

 

“Her songs were brilliant, funny, they broke your heart, had wonderful chords and these magnificent bridges — and they were about girls,” said the actress and singer Tracey Ullman who, 40 years ago, scored an international hit with MacColl’s grand pop proclamation “They Don’t Know.” “I played that song at my wedding. I played it at my husband’s memorial service. It’s a song you can carry with you through your entire life,” she added. “Kirsty wrote those kinds of songs.”

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The Pogues review – triumphant tribute to energy and poetry of band’s early days

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An inspired cast of guests from Nadine Shah to Jim Sclavunos stand in for the late Shane MacGowan in a raucous run-through of the band’s debut album and other highlights

With late frontman Shane MacGowan replaced by a succession of guests, this 40th anniversary show for the Pogues’ debut album, Red Roses For Me, could so easily have been a pale imitation, glorified karaoke. And yet, it’s utterly triumphant. There are no overwrought speeches during this evening curated by the band’s co-founder Spider Stacy, only a brief dedication to MacGowan and other departed bandmates Darryl Hunt and Philip Chevron, and the Dubliners’ Ronnie Drew before The Irish Rover. Instead, they pay more fitting tribute by tapping back into the tornado of energy, passion and poetry that made the Pogues thrilling to begin with.

Within a nanosecond of opener Transmetropolitan, it’s pandemonium amid a sell-out crowd who burst instantly into a hundreds-strong mosh, bellowing back every word. The Battle Of Brisbane pushes things even higher; Greenland Whale Fisheries a notch higher than that. By Boys From The County Hell, it’s totally feral.

A relentless band, also featuring Goat Girl’s Holly Mullineaux and Fontaines DC’s Tom Coll, thrive off that energy. Garbed in suave black suits they pose and posture, James Fearnley wielding his accordion as if he’s Hendrix with a guitar. Their real genius, however, is the space they leave for their guests to make things their own. Experimental duo Stick in the Wheel bring a cutting edge to Dark Streets of London. A precise and dramatic Jim Sclavunos conveys every ounce of sorrow in anti-war song The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.

Young Brighton newcomers the New Eves deliver a particularly manic Waxie’s Dargle, whirling their way around the stage between bombarding verses. Tellingly, it’s this that prompts Stacy to mention MacGowan for the first time. “That one’s for Shane. He’s here, I can tell,” he says, visibly emotional.

Stacy is a charming presence, using his tin whistle as a conductor’s baton, and takes the pressure off the occasion through constant self-effacement. “From the sublime to the ridiculous,” he jokes after Nadine Shah – who’s transcendent The Auld Triangle is the finest performance of all – is followed by the sprightly Repeal of the Licensing Laws.

Under Stacy’s easy control the gig sparks with spontaneity. Iona Zajac gatecrashes Daragh Lynch of Lankum’s Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go for a MacGowan-esque scream-off; Zajac, the New Eves and the Deadlians’ Sean Fitzgerald dance chaotically across the stage during The Irish Rover; a genuinely unplanned encore after the house lights come on sees all the guests at once reprise Streams Of Whiskey. Unruly but never unfriendly, emotional but never mawkish, there could be no finer tribute to MacGowan than this.

Source: The Pogues review – triumphant tribute to energy and poetry of band’s early days | Music | The Guardian

The Parting Glass, the Irish New Wave, and Clancy MacBob: A Saint Patrick’s Day Playlist for 2024

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By Dai Bando

Today I’ve compiled some outstanding and odd musical recommendations for your 2024 Saint Patrick’s Day celebration.

I begin with a group of tunes I call “The Parting Glass.” 2023 was a devastating year in terms of losing so many wonderful Irish performers, most notably Sinead O’Connor and Shane MacGowan. The second group of clips, “The Green New Wave,” features several songs by some heralded up-and-comers, including Dubliners Lisa O’Neil and the group Lankum, both of whom I was fortunate to see in concert last year. Finally, no Saint Patrick’s Day playlist would be complete without a nod to Bob Dylan, whom we affectionately refer to in our subgroup of songs, “Clancy MacBob.”

Sláinte!

THE PARTING GLASS

We lost far too many beloved performers of Irish Music in recent years. In 2023, the deaths of Sinead O’Connor and Shane MacGowan hit their fans particularly hard.

Séamus Begley “Bruach Na Carraige Báine”

If I had to choose my favorite voice in all of traditional Irish music, it would belong to West Kerry farmer Seamus Begley, who passed away January 9, 2023. In this Sean-nós classic, Begley duets with another wonderful Irish singer, Mary Black.

In an interview with Irish radio RTÉ, American actor John C Reilly recalled spending time with Séamus in Dingle and playing music together in Los Angeles for an Irish Christmas show:
“We struck up a great friendship. We had a direct connection as men and as musicians. He was just a legend of a man, it’s such a big loss … There’s something really moving about a gentle giant like that, when you hear the sweetness of a man like that who’s so strong. I think the last time I was on Seamus’ farm with him, he was literally hand lifting boulders.”
Seek out Begley’s finest work, his 1996 album with guitarist Stephen Cooney titled Meitheal. Below I’ve included links to Begley’s passing and his concerts.
• Ireland’s RTE on the death of Seamus Begley | Begley & Cooney in concert | Hairy and Squarey

Terry Hall and Sinead O’Connor “All Kinds of Everything”

It was so unexpected and tragic to lose both Terry Hall (December 18, 2022) and Sinead O’Connor (July 26, 2023) just a little over a year apart. This duet between the former leader of the Ska band “The Specials” and Ireland’s beloved warrior-daughter Sinead, was a remake of the 1979 pop hit “All Kinds of Everything”. Though it never hit the U.S charts, the original song was a massive hit in Europe for one Dana Rosemary Scallon, known at the time by her mononym stage name “Dana.” Some twenty years after recording the song, Scallon would run for President in Ireland. Her original version of “All Kinds of Everything” was featured in the 2011 film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
“Dana” aside, I really love Terry and Sinead’s remake. “There are lines here that if it said ‘copyright Leonard Cohen’ it would be called a work of genius,” Terry Hall said of the songs childlike lyric.
In the video, Sinéad flashes a big, beautiful smile while Hall sings his first verse. (Sigh.) Rest in Peace.

Sinead O’Connor and Shane MacGowan “Haunted”

Originally written and recorded by The Pogues for 1986’s Sid & Nancy soundtrack, “Haunted” was rerecorded by Shane MacGowan as a duet with Sinéad. Haunted indeed – two brilliant Irish artists done too soon.

John Prine and Dolores Keane “It’s a Cheating Situation”

John Prine died of Covid on April 7, 2020 and it still hard to believe he’s gone. This track is from Prine’s masterpiece In Spite of Ourselves (1999) and features the amazing voice of Galway’s Dolores Keane. “It’s a Cheating Situation” was written by legendary Nashville songwriter Curly Putnam, who also wrote “He Stopped Loving Her Today” for George Jones. Prine had a home, and spent part of the year, living in Ireland with his beloved “Irish bride” Fiona. A favorite haunt of Prine’s was Green’s Bar in Kinvara, Galway. There he played with Irish musicians like Paul Brady, Declan O’Rourke and Sharon Shannon.

“He loved the simplicity of life among the artists, musicians, writers and poets in the small communities gathering in the pub and singing songs,” said Fiona Prine. “There is so much about it that he appreciated, you just don’t get that so much anymore in America. Ireland is a unique place; there’s nowhere else like it. I’d take him back to the village I’m from in Donegal, it reminded him of his early life in Kentucky.” 

Rest in Peace, John Prine.

The Cranberries “Dreams”

It’s been over two decades since the Cranberries’ released their brilliant first album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We?, and five years since Dolores O’Riordan’s sudden death in 2019, yet listening to “Dreams” today is just as as exhilarating today as it was 25 years ago. I believe “Dreams” is as good as anything U2 ever recorded. The song experienced a rebirth when it began and ended the first season of Netfilx’ wonderful series Derry Girls. “I know I felt like this before. But now I’m feeling it even more.” RIP Dolores.

The Pogues “Dirty Old Town”

Ewan MacColl wrote his classic song “Dirty Old Town” in 1949 for a scene-change during one of his Theatre Workshop plays on the West end of London . Music critic John Leland later called the song, “a sparse melancholy reminiscence of love in an industrial sewer.” 

Ewan MacColl’s daughter Kristy MacColl was best known for her duet with Shane MacGowan on the “Fairytale of New York” which became a perennial Christmas favorite. Kirsty died tragically in a boating accident in 2000.

This clip of “Dirty Ol Town” below is from The Pogues 1985 groundbreaking album Rum, Sodomy & the Lash.

Rest in Peace Ewan (1989), Kristy (December 18, 2000), and Shane MacGowan (November 30, 2023). Thanks for the music.

Seán Tyrell “Mattie”

I first heard Sean Tyrrell perform at the historic Guinness Fleadh at the Suffolk Downs race track in the summer of 1999. The headliners were Elvis Costello, Richard Thompson and the Chieftains, yet I left the festival most impressed by this singer/songwriter from Galway. The late Boston radio host of A Celtic Sojourn Brian O’Donovan, called Tyrrell a “singular presence in Irish music. Impossible to categorize.”

Seán Tyrrell died in October of 2021. On his passing, Ireland’s then-president Michael D. Higgins said “He was one of Ireland’s finest, most talented, original and creative troubadours.”

“Whenever I performed with him I always had a sense of his incorruptible integrity,” said Irish-American musician Martin Hayes. “He could never sell out and he never did.”

Actress Brenda Fricker summed up Seán Tyrrell when she said: “If you’re lucky, you come across a voice like Seán’s once in a lifetime.  When he sings I feel alive.” 

Rest in Peace Sean, and also Boston’s beloved radio host Brian O’Donovan (October 6, 2023).

Glen Hansard & Lisa O’Neil “Fairytale of New York”

The Pogues frontman and Irish punk rock icon, who died Nov. 30 at 65, was celebrated at Saint Mary of the Rosary Church in his hometown of Negagh in the Irish county of Tipperary.

Former members of the Pogues played traditional tune “The Parting Glass” as one of the final songs of the service, the BBC reported.

MacGowan’s widow, Victoria Mary Clarke, gave a eulogy for her late husband during the funeral, saying, “Toward the end he just told everybody how much he loved them.”

Glen Hansard and Lisa O’Neill performed “Fairytale of New York” as a reflection after Holy Communion.

THE GREEN NEW WAVE

“As Ireland reimagines itself, musicians including the singer Lisa O’Neill and the band Lankum are reimagining the island’s music with an ever-growing sense of pride”

– New York Times “What’s Driving a Fresh Wave of Irish Music? Tradition” 3/24/2023

Lisa O’Neil “Rock The Machine”

With a voice that sounds like it was discovered in a box of scratchy 78’s from a basement in Clare, Lisa O’Neil gave a brilliant concert a year ago at Newport, Rhode Island’s historic Colony House. Her vocals combine the dronish quality of Irish gypsy legend Margaret Barry, with a sprinkling of the otherwordly inflections of a Kate Bush. Her influences include Scot poet Ivor Cutler, early 1900’s union organizer Mary ‘Mother’ Jones and 13th-century Christian mystic Meister Eckhart.

Lankum “Hares on the Mountain”

A recent review in The Guardian described attending a Lankum show as more like an exorcism than a gig:
“To be clear, no audience members are physically harmed tonight by Lankum’s mantric take on traditional Irish music – although the Dublin foursome’s often confrontational acoustics are part of their considerable appeal. It’s the songs that tell of murders (multiple) and suicides (at least two), of grief and dread. There are mutinies at sea (the traditional The New York Trader). On land, travails are rife, nowhere more so than on Rocky Road to Dublin. Lives blighted by addiction regularly stud the band’s set list, which mixes originals, covers and avant-garde rearrangements of folk songs.”

Lankum’s Radie Peat and Darragh Lynch put together this version of the traditional song “Hares on the Mountain” for This Ain’t No Disco, an Irish Music documentary series created by Dublin musician/filmmaker Myles O’Reilly.

Ye Vagabonds “Willy O Winsbury”

Gorgeous harmonies from Carlow-based brothers Diarmuid and Brían MacGloinn, who go by the name of “Ye Vagabonds.” Willie O Winsbury is a traditional Scottish ballad that dates from at least 1775, and is known under several other names, including  “Farewell, Farewell” as recorded in 1969 by Fairport Convention with Sandy Denny on vocals.

Rufous Nightjar “I Was the Fool”

Branwen Kavanagh, Anna-Mieke Bishop and Zoé Basha met at a time described as “a golden wave of underground traditional and folk music in Dublin.”
In 2018 the three Irsih gals travelled across Eastern Europe learning folk songs, and developed a beautiful harmonious dynamic and the officially formed Rufous Nightjar in 2020. I hear some Swingle Singers, some Roche sisters, and maybe even a wee bit of the 1950s harmony trio The Fleetwoods.

Love it!

Muireann Bradley “Delia”

Did this 18 yr-old country-blues prodigy learn this song from Rev Gary Davis or David Bromberg? Well, it sure as Hell wasn’t Bing Crosby. Muireann Bradley is a young blues, ragtime, roots and folk guitarist and singer based in Ballybofey in County Donegal Ireland. She’s listened to more Mississippi John Hurt than Tayor Swift. Keep an eye and ear on Muireann.

Brigid Mae Power “I’m Grateful”

Her bio informs that Brigid Mae Power spent her early years in London and moved to Galway at 12 years old, where she learned to play the button accordion before starting to sing and play piano as a teen. She spent some time living and gigging in New York in the late 2000s (recording an EP Live at Coughlan’s from her tour with the brilliant Chicagoan Ryley Walker.) The Guardian descibes Power as pocessing a “haunting voice that raises the everyday to a near-mystical realm.” Her original songs are often political with “Me Too” perspectives, yet she’ll throw in an insanely perfect cover of Slim Whitman’s “Rose Marie”. (hear that beauty here)

Clancy MacBob, aka Zimmy MacDylan

In his 2004 autobiography “Chronicles”, Bob Dylan wrote that he originally just wanted to write songs like the Clancy Brothers. “I got to be friends with Liam (Clancy) and began going after-hours to the White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street, which was mainly an Irish bar frequented mostly by guys from the old country. All through the night, they would sing drinking songs, country ballads, and rousing rebel songs that would lift the roof.” Filmmaker Todd Haynes explored the many personas of Bob Dylan in his 2007 film “I’m Not There.” Haynes could have included an Aran sweater-wearing character named Clancy MacBob.

“Farewell” (aka “The Leaving of Liverpool”)

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem had an Irish Top 10 hit with “The Leaving of Liverpool” in 1964. Around the same time, Dylan renamed it, changed a few of the lyrics, and began performing it around Greenwich Village. The song has since been adapted by several artists, including The Pogues, and was featured on the Inside Llewyn Davis film soundtrack.

Sinéad Lohan “To Ramona”

One of the great Irish musical mysteries is the disappearance of fabulously talented singer-songwriter Sinéad Lohan. Sinéad made two beautiful albums of original songs (1995’s Who Do You Think I Am and 1998’s No Mermaid) and then retired to the south coast of Ireland to raise a family – never to be heard from again. Lohan’s original song “Out of the Woods” appeared on Nickel Creek’s debut LP.
In this clip, Sinéad is accompanied here by Donal Lunny’s Coolfin band. The song “To Ramona” was originally recorded on Dylan’s fourth studio album, “Another Side of Bob Dylan” (1964).
Come back to us, Sinéad …unless, of course, you’d rather not.

Luka Bloom “Make You Feel My Love”

Luka Bloom’s version of Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love” is from the Irish singer/songwriter’s excellent 2000 collection of cover songs Keeper of the Flame. Adele had a massive hit with “Make You Feel My Love” in 2008, and the song’s also been covered by Neil Diamond, Boy George, Bryan Ferry, and Pink as well. Seek out Luka Bloom’s first two albums of original material Riverside (1990) and Acoustic Bicycle (1992) – both terrific.

Bob Dylan “Belle Isle”

Belle Isle is in County Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, on the edge of Lough Erne. That’s a long way from Hibbing, Minnesota and a lot closer to Van Morrison’s childhood home than Woody Guthrie’s. Love this Irish-inflected original from Dylan’s Self Portrait  the tenth studio album released in 1970.

Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”

Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, those onscreen/offscreen lovers from the Irish indie film Once, perform this rollicking version of Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” from the 2007 bio/drama I’m Not There, directed by Todd Haynes. Haynes film had six different actors depicting different facets of Dylan’s public personas, including Cate Blanchett in curly wig and shades. (Blanchett was nominated for an Academy Award for what was called “the film’s most exquisitely spot-on Bob.”) Said director Haynes at the time, “The minute you try to grab hold of Dylan, he’s no longer where he was. He’s like a flame: If you try to hold him in your hand you’ll surely get burned.”

Lisa Hannigan – “Just like Tom Thumb’s blues”

I’ve always loved Dylan’s song “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” and Dublin’s Lisa Hannigan has long been one of my favorite Irish singers. But I’m especially fond of this video because it was filmed in Dick Mac’s Bar in Dingle where 20 years ago, my wife photographed me and my nine-year-old daughter Caleigh in a snug sharing a pint of Guinness. We faked it, of course. Reasonably sure of that.
Check out Lisa Hannigan recordings Sea Sew (2009) and Passenger (2012). Love her.