Friday Afternoon Jukebox

Mark of New Jersey

Mark is a Founding Editor of The League of Ordinary Gentlemen, the predecessor of Ordinary Times.

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6 Responses

  1. Tom Van Dyke says:

    Dude, Black 47 is like in my Top 5, and “James Connolly” makes me weep every time I hear it. To get a Republican to weep for a Socialist, well, that’s some damn fine art.

    Up steps our citizen leader and roars out to the sky 

    My name is James Connolly – I didn’t come here to die 
    But to fight for the rights of the working man 
    And the small farmer too 
    Protect the proletariat from the bosses and their screws 
    So hold on to your rifles, boys, and don’t give up your dream 
    Of a Republic for the workin’ class, economic liberty!
    Oh Lillie, I don’t want to die, we’ve got so much to live for 
    And I know we’re all goin’ out to get slaughtered, but I just can’t take any more 
    Just the sight of one more child screamin’ from hunger in a Dublin slum 
    Or his mother slavin’ 14 hours a day for the scum 
    Who exploit her and take her youth and throw it on a factory floor 
    Oh Lillie, I just can’t take any more 
    They’ve locked us out, they’ve banned our unions,
    they even treat their animals better than us 
    No! It’s far better to die like a man on your feet 
    than to live forever like some slave on your knees, Lillie 

    But don’t let them wrap any green flag around me 
    And for God’s sake, don’t let them bury me in some field full of harps and shamrocks 
    And whatever you do, don’t let them make a martyr out of me 
    No! Rather raise the Starry Plough on high, sing a song of freedom 
    Here’s to you, Lillie, the rights of man and international revolution!

     

    Goosebumps, just cutting & pasting the lyric.   Hell, it makes me want to go shoot a capitalist meself.

    WD, & thx, MarkT.  Finest kind.

    [Ran across an original lyric & chord sheet.  How impossibly cool…

    http://www.thereelbook.com/groups/Black47/charts/JamesConnolly.pdfReport

    • Thanks, Tom.  I’ve been trying to find a convenient excuse to put Black 47, especially James Connolly, on the Jukebox for, oh…. how long as this site been around again?

      You may or may not know this, but Larry Kirwan has a two or three hour show on XM every Saturday morning where he plays a decent amount of Black 47 in addition to plenty of other Irish music.Report

      • Dang, MarkT, I don’t get XM.  Met Larry Kirwan once, taught him an opera singer’s trick how to hold the “eee” sound on “dreeeeeeeeeeeeam” in James Connolly.  I got the feeling he thinks he does it fine.  But he doesn’t, which you alluded to about his “polarizing” voice.

        Love him anywayz, though.

        [Next time, “Maria’s Wedding,” eh?]Report

    • wardsmith in reply to Tom Van Dyke says:

      Sure’n I didn’t know you were Irish TomReport