Top 10 Irish Songs*
A few words on “Top 10 Irish songs” taking in: “best of” lists, subjectivity, lost 80s classics, cover versions, The Royal Showband, an orange and cream 1970s Fidelity turntable and keeping music evil.
*Today
Photograph by Paul McDermott.
Last week the Irish Independent published a “best of” list titled “The best Irish songs of all time”. Their list was subtitled “ranked: the definitive top 50”.
Let’s agree on one thing straight away, “best of” lists are ridiculous, they’re also simultaneously highly entertaining and incredibly frustrating. They are also never “definitive”. That’s just a silly claim. They are however great clickbait; why else would a national newspaper drag out the publication of its list over four days?
I like “best of” lists. Like many others, I get really annoyed when my own favourites are absent, I take note of albums or songs that I’ve never heard and I start thinking about rules I’d enforce if I was compiling such a list.
Last week was no different. I started thinking about whether I’d allow cover versions? Would I allow more than one song per artist? How would I define an “Irish song”? I looked through my record collection and started pulling singles.
So, here’s a list of ten of my favourite Irish songs - today.
These records aren’t in any particular order. Three were released in the 1980s and the other seven all come from the early 1990s, the earliest song on this list is from 1982 and the latest is from 1995 - I think that says more about my own age than anything else because most of these songs were released in that sweet spot of my late teens and early 20s.
Some of these songs may have appeared on albums but all of them were actually released as a single. I also picked bands that didn’t get a look in on last week’s “definitive” list. I could write derisively about the use of the word “definitive” and I could write that my choices “shamelessly didn’t get a look in,” but that would be ridiculous - the fun in lists after all is their subjectivity. And as if my subjectivity wasn’t obvious enough, six of my ten choices are from my hometown of Cork. I’ve produced a podcast episode on four of these artists and two of these songs have appeared on albums that were featured on the podcast.
So, this is a bit of fun, it’s about unearthing some lost classics. If I was to pick ten songs tomorrow I know for a fact that I’d pick ten different songs (none of them from Cork BTW). Records that mean something to me, records that have memories ingrained in them, that list would find room for ‘Burns My Skin’ by Into Paradise, ‘Subside’ by Mexican Pets, ‘Burn Baby Burn’ by Ash, ‘No More Art’ by Desert Hearts, ‘Starsigns and Sportscars’ by Luggage, ‘Beretta’ by Turn and ‘Beautiful Affair’ by Stockton’s Wing. I’d include ‘A Bunch of Thyme’ by Foster and Allen because my sister used to sing it when we were kids and it reminds me long car journeys, it’s syrupy and twee and I love it.
Photograph by Paul McDermott.
I’d break my own rule about cover versions and find room for ‘Rush Hour’ by Joyrider their fantastic frenzied cover version of Go-Go Jane Wiedlin’s incredible 1987 single.
Jane Wiedlin - ‘Rush Hour’ (7” - 1987, EMI) and Joyrider - ‘Rush Hour’ (7” - 1996, Paradox Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
And while I’m on cover versions I reckon I’d have to find room for ‘Hucklebuck’ by The Royal Showband. Brendan Bowyer and co. had an Irish No. 1 in January 1965 with their version of Andy Gibson and Roy Alfred’s 1940s jazz standard. It’s a song I was weaned on.
‘Hucklebuck’ (7” - 1964, His Master’s Voice). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
Or to give them their official title - The Royal Showband Waterford (featuring Brendan Bowyer). My mother’s 7” of ‘Hucklebuck’ is battered and scratched to bits and I can’t remember it ever having a sleeve when I was young - it didn’t need a sleeve though as it spent most of its time on my grandmother’s orange and cream Fidelity hi-fi.
Fidelity HF43 - 1970. Photograph by Paul McDermott.
But that’s tomorrow’s list of “Top 10 Irish Songs”.
Today’s list of “Top 10 Irish Songs” is completely different. I’ve listed the ten songs below and they were all featured on last night’s episode of Songs To Learn And Sing on 103.2 Dublin City FM. You can listen back to the episode here:
‘Charlton Heston’ - Stump
‘Charlton Heston’ (7” - 1988, Ensign Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
Mick Lynch was a gent. When I first met him he patiently answered all of my fanboy questions. I remember we had a chat about the making of the ‘Charlton Heston’ video. I wanted to know where all the frogs had come from and Mick was happy to indulge me. He wasn’t to know that I had taped the song off the radio when Fanning played it and that I had rewound the tape countless times trying to transcribe his lyrics. It’s a joke song that the band wrote in a few minutes in Hansa Studios in Berlin, it’s also a work of genius:
“The broken tablets had been mended
The golden calf had been up-ended
And old folk sitting round the fire
Would talk of voices from the sky
Babies sailing down the Nile
The recipe for locust pie
A hundred thousand frogs per mile
We’d always ask them to describe
How Charlton Heston put his vest on”
Mick Lynch and Kev Hopper (Hansa Studios, 1987). Photograph © Rob McKahey
“I was hung over at the Breakfast table one morning and it just came out, ‘Charlton Heston, put his vest on.’ Everyone cracked up,” Mick told me in Lights! Camel! Action! - the story of Stump. “I wrote the first verse and that was going to be it but we wrote the rest of it and it was the fastest song we ever wrote. Maybe that’s part of the appeal to it, it wasn’t laboured, it happened. Maybe that’s why I like it so much. We didn’t spend eight weeks grinding it out.”
2. ‘Hollow Blow’ - In Motion
For an Evening’s Velvet Ending EP (7” - 1993, Muck Savage Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
These days ‘Hollow Blow’ would be called Dreampop. It’s the opening track on For an Evening’s Velvet Ending In Motion’s debut EP released on my old friend Shane Fitzsimons’ Muck Savage Records. The only record released on the label. ‘Hollow Blow’ and another EP track ‘In Daylight’, would appear the following year on The Language of Everyday Life, the band’s brilliant debut album, released on Dead Elvis Records in 1994. After In Motion Alan Kelly formed The Last Post and released two great albums: 2000’s Love Lost and 2002’s Dry Land. My good friend Jim Morrish printed the sleeves for the In Motion EP. Shane, Jim and I spent a memorable night in Jim’s Munster Copying printing shop folding the sleeves. I still have the paper cuts to prove it. Good times!
3. ‘Call Yossarian’ - LMNO Pelican
Boutrous Boutros EP (12” - 1993, Fred Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
The band’s second EP, the Red Dot EP, is probably a stronger recording but it doesn’t have ‘Call Yossarian’. That song is the lead track on the band’s debut EP, the brilliantly titled, Boutros Boutros EP. Ten years ago in The Irish Times I described ‘Call Yossarian’ as, “one of the greatest tracks written by any Irish band.” I’ll double down and now write: one of the greatest tracks by any Irish band ever! When I hear this song I think about LMNO’s drummer Brendan Butler who sadly passed away in 2013. He was a gent, a star, a huge figure in Cork’s music community and he’s sadly missed by many. Last year my old friend Mervyn wrote a beautiful tribute to Brendan on FB. It included many highlights but one of my favorite lines in Merv’s piece was, “If Brendan was at a gig you knew you were at the right gig.” Damn right Merv.
4. ‘Going to Nepal’ - Blink
‘Going to Nepal’ (7” - 1993, Lime Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
“I am happy to be me,
that’s all I’m happy to be me
I’m an absolute nobody
but I’m happy and I’m free
I’m sitting on a rock
Up on a mountain in Nepal
I’m happy to be nothing
and I’m the happiest of all.”
I read somewhere once that Blink took their name from the Cocteau Twins’ song ‘Ice Blink Luck’. I also have a distant memory of Blink-182 having to add the “182” to their moniker due to the existence of the Dublin band. I also seem to remember something about a copyright claim against The Cranberries due to an alleged similarity between the Limerick band’s song ‘Forever Yellow Skies’ and Blink’s ‘It’s Not My Fault’.
In all of these memories I’d kind of forgotten Blink’s music. ‘Going to Nepal’ was everywhere for a few weeks in early 1993, eventually reaching No. 10 in the Irish Singles Chart. It was released on Lime Records, a sub-label of EMI/Parlophone in Ireland and was the second of five singles from the band’s debut album A Map of the Universe by Blink. The band’s debut single ‘Is God Really Groovy?’ was released in late 1992 and ‘Going to Nepal’ was followed by three more big singles throughout 1993: ‘Cello’, the aforementioned ‘It’s Not My Fault’ and ‘Happy Day’. Blink even managed to get their own personalised Telecom Éireann Callcard in 1993! Remember those?
Image from irishcallcards.net
I can remember posting off the “for further information” postcard that came with ‘Going to Nepal’. I remember this distinctly because Blink were one of the few bands that ever replied to these marketing postcards. Over the course of 1993 Blink and their record label sent out postcards to their mailing list with news of future releases. ‘Going to Nepal’ was produced by Sean O’Neill and always reminded me of a cross between Carter USM, Jesus Jones and PWEI - I was OK with that BTW. I didn’t stay the course with Blink beyond their first album but I’ve always loved this song.
5. ‘Checking In, Checking Out’ - The High Llamas
‘Checking In, Checking Out’ (12”, 1995, Alpaca Park Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
“Gifted artists need respect
True collectors must collect”
When A&M’s Herb Albert and Jerry Moss were setting up their Almo Sounds record label Moss was completely taken with ‘Checking In, Checking Out’ by The High Llamas and Gideon Gaye, the song’s parent album. Almo offered The High Llamas a record deal but the band’s Sean O’Hagan happened to be in Dundalk at a family wedding so hadn’t responded. What did you do in an age before mobile phones when you desperately needed to contact someone?
“They knew I was in Ireland,” Sean told me on Episode 37 of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited. “So they postered central Dublin.” That’s how Sean’s face ended up all over Dublin in “Wanted” style posters asking, “Have you seen this man?” In the end Sean signed to Sony Records who reissued Gideon Gaye and released ‘Checking In, Checking Out’ as a single. In June 1995, NME awarded the song its ‘Single of the Week’ accolade, describing it as, “An altogether special out-of-body pop experience.” It’s a classic.
6. ‘The Sugar Beat God’ - Cypress, Mine!
‘The Sugar Beat God’ (7” - 1987, Solid Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
“The heat is murderous
This summer’s got to end
We’re all up in a heap
As two men kick each other in the head.”
Whenever it’s a really hot day I inevitably end up at some point letting out a screech: “The heat is MURDEROUS, this summer’s got to end.” I’ve been doing this for 37 years. Right now there are two copies of this gem on sale on Discogs. Someone inexplicably paid €200 for a copy of this 7” in 2012. The result of this sale has been to inflate the value of the 7”. One Irish seller has a NM/VG+ copy going for €84 and a UK seller has a VG copy in a plain paper sleeve priced at £120 (in the voice of Darryl Kerrigan from The Castle: “Tell ‘em they’re dreamin’”).
If someone offered me €84 for my copy I’d take it.
Come to think of it, I wouldn’t take the €84. I wouldn’t take £120 or even €200 for it. Why? Because ‘The Sugar Beat God’ is fantastic and I love it.
7. ‘The Bridge’ - Cactus World News
‘The Bridge’ (7” and 12” - 1985, Mother Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
I thought I could get through a list of 10 Irish songs without mentioning U2 but I’ve just remembered that Joe O’Herlihy, the band’s live sound engineer, produced the last song on this list - Cypress, Mine!’s ‘The Sugar Beat God’, and Bono was the co-producer alongside Jon Kelly of this 7” from 1985.
Cactus World News re-recorded ‘The Bridge’ for Urban Beaches, their debut album released the following year in 1986. The first version of ‘The Bridge’ however - the Mother Records version - belongs on any list of great Irish songs. It was the second release on Mother Records and comes in that familiar Steve Averill die-cut Celtic logo sleeve. It still sounds absolutely thrilling. Altogether now:
“Going up and over over the bridge
Springtide will lift me take me across”
8. ‘Cotton Dress’ - Catchers
‘Cotton Dress’ (7” - 1994, Setanta Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.
Catchers came from Portstewart, the small seaside town in County Derry four miles west of Portrush. Singer-songwriter and guitarist Dale Grundale formed the band with Alice Lemon on backing vocals and keyboards and Peter Kelly on drums, Ger Fitzgerald from Limerick band They Do It With Mirrors joined on bass once they arrived in London. ‘Cotton Dress’ their debut single was awarded ‘Single of the Week’ in Melody Maker on 04 May 1994. The paper described the song as “exquisite” and “blissfully beautiful” and Catchers were described as “sublime, enchanting and some strange kind of wonderful.” The NME wrote that, “the voices of singers Dale and Alice intertwine like a folky, more innocent version Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield.” The way their voices intertwine on the chorus of ‘Cotton Dress’ is gloriously magical. Alice sings the first two lines and then starts some “ba da ba dahs” as Dale comes in with the remaining lines. It’s one of my favourite moments in any song:
“My feet are in the water, waiting for the tide to come
The whisper in the corner, does its best to make me numb
My ear in your cage, your pulse in my hand
Eyeing up the child, fingering the dead
Swallowing your flow, your teeth on my neck
Coil me full of hate, and bend me out of shape”
Dale and Alice joined me for Episode 34 of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited. It was a huge pleasure to talk to them about ‘Cotton Dress’
9. ‘Kiss of No Return’ - Trevor Herion
‘Kiss of No Return’ (7” - 1982, Imperial Recordings). Photograph by Paul McDermott
“We’ll meet in Paris in the spring again
So far away from old Berlin”
One of the most surreal Lockdown moments for me came during a 2021 Zoom interview when I had to explain to Thomas Dolby what tripe and drisheen was. Dolby was telling me a story about his old friend the Cork singer Trevor Herion.
UK musician/producer Thomas Dolby laughs as he recalls the time Cork-born Trevor Herion ran out of a London studio in the middle of a recording session.
“He came back about three-quarters of an hour later,” Dolby remembers. “I said, ‘What happened Trevor, where’d you go?’ and Trevor said that he had to go home because he realised that he’d left some tripe on the stove.” Dolby asks me what tripe is, “Cow’s or sheep’s intestines or something?”
I describe the traditional Irish culinary offal to him. “Well by the time he got home the saucepan had exploded,” continues Dolby. “The tripe was all over his ceiling.” You can take the boy out of Cork…
(taken from: B-Side the Leeside: Trevor Herion - Beauty Life by Paul McDermott, Irish Examiner - 03 November 2021)
I first came across Trevor’s name when I found a 7” at a record fair. I hadn’t heard of Trevor but the other names on the single piqued my interest: Production by Mike Howlett, Arrangement by Thomas Dolby, Photography by Richard Haughton and Design by Peter Saville. All those names were familiar to me. I bought the 7”. And lo and behold Trevor was from Cork.
Saville designed the sleeve to look like a cigar box and Herion took inspiration from the Edwardian era in how he styled himself for Haughton’s photographs. Both the design and photography match the gorgeous romantic pop song perfectly, its European theme underpinned by the use of accordion and strings with Trevor’s rich voice on top. It’s a beautiful song. The 7” cost me €1 - score!
10. ‘Blues for Ceausescu’ - The Fatima Mansions
‘Blues for Ceausescu’ (12” - 1990, Kitchenware Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott
“Meanwhile in London, things stay the same
The untenable must be maintained
Who’s that knocking down my back door?
It’s the same bald-headed, bug-eyed male whore
Ciao, Ceausescu!”
How ANY list of the “best Irish songs of all time” can describe itself as “the definitive Top 50” and leave out ‘Blues for Ceausescu’ is beyond me. It’s a joke actually. ‘Blues for Ceausescu’ is an epic, 6 and half minute statement of intent that was awarded ‘Single of the Week’ by the NME who wrote, “‘Blues For Ceausescu’ is alive with the sweat of fear and a burning desire for vengeance, two qualities sadly absent from so much of today’s popular music.” It sounds as ferocious, angry and confrontational today as it did back then.
‘Blues for Ceausescu’ wasn’t on the band’s Viva Dead Ponies, a decision that Cathal Coughlan told me he regretted when I spoke to him for Episode 3 of To Here Knows When - Great Irish Albums Revisited. When Radioactive released Viva Dead Ponies in the US in 1991, ‘Blues for Ceausecu’ was included and by then the band were the self-declared “Mother of All Bands” and they had announced that it was their intention to “Keep Music Evil”.
Cathal sadly passed away in May 2022. At the end of our chat about Viva Dead Ponies, I asked him to pick a song from that period of the band to play at the end of the podcast:
“I think probably ‘Blues for Ceausescu’ because it was the moment where we established ourselves as being something different, you know. It would be a while longer before we hit the popularity, you know, such popularity as we had, but this was the moment where it wasn’t anymore just about trying to just play my demos, you know, it really transcended and the power of the band really was audible for the first time. So yeah, ‘Blues for Ceausescu’”
Paul McDermott - Keeping Music Evil.