Seeing as it's St Patrick's Day today, I thought I'd post something special. The winners of the Eurovision Song Contest have to host the event in the following year, and 1994 was Ireland's second consecutive year with that duty after having won with Linda Martin's "Why Me?" in 1992 and Niamh Kavanagh's "In Your Eyes" in 1993. The captions tell the story, but this was the interval entertainment that went on to be a worldwide phenomenon. The music came in at #87 in the recent top 100 countdown.

Bill Whelan - Riverdance

 

This song didn't make the top 100, but I heard it emanating from a pub on Paddy's Day and it got stuck in my head for a while. It's about a town in Co. Clare.

Christy Moore - Lisdoonvarna

Does this count? It's a one word title! " Waterloo" 

 

 

11 hours ago, Hobie Hartkins said:

Does this count? It's a one word title! " Waterloo" 

Of course it counts. Any songs with one word titles are welcome. I've just been concentrating on Irish songs around St Patrick's Day.

Incidentally, Abba won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with 'Waterloo', and Christy Moore wrote 'Lisdoonvarna' for the 1978 contest, but it didn't make it through to represent Ireland.

For a change, here's a bit of Brit funk from 1981.

Linx - Intuition

 

I'm sadly back to using this thread for an obituary. The news broke just before midday that Irish musician Glen Hansard had died in a motorcycle accident this morning at 56 years old. He was lead singer with The Frames, but also sang solo, acted and championed new music. Most of the radio since lunchtime was devoted to playing his music and music he liked, as well as voice notes with memories of Glen. I started to feel like I was the only person in the country who didn't have a great story about meeting him. The song below came in at #31 in the Today FM top 100 Irish songs (mentioned above).

As I said above, Glen also acted and appeared in Alan Parker's famous BAFTA-winning movie 'The Commitments' in 1991. In 2006 he was in a small independent movie called 'Once'. The song 'Falling Slowly' with Marketa Irglova from the movie won Glen an Oscar in 2007.

I'll admit, his music has mainly passed me by, but all the good stories today have made me want to look into it.

After listening to more of the tributes, I discovered that Glen did an annual Christmas busk for a Dublin homeless charity. It all started in 2010 when he was asked to join the charity choir as he walked past while doing his Christmas shopping. He didn't make it back that day, but did return the following day to busk and donate any proceeds to the charity. By chance, he was joined by Irish singer Mundy (see previous page for one of his songs). I couldn't find the story on Youtube, but Glen tells it himself on Facebook. Over the last 15 years he persuaded such big names as Bono, Imelda May, Hozier and Sinead O'Connor to join him. The busks have raised over €2 million ($2.31 million) for the charity. Here are some clips from 2015:

The day after Glen's death, a group of buskers/musicians organized a tribute busk at the statue of another great Irish musician, Luke Kelly. One of them was apparently playing a guitar which Glen gave him because he didn't have one.

I've just read that Derran "Derry" Brownson, co-founder of EMF, has died from a brain tumor. He was the same age as me, and this song takes me back to my college days. I never know how well known British bands are in the US, but this one apparently made it to #1 in the US charts in 1991.

EMF - Unbelievable

 

RIP Frank Beard, drummer with ZZ Top. From 'Back to the Future Part III':

ZZ Top - Doubleback

 

I remember before any of the members of ZZ Top died, they were interviewing  Frank and he was showing his Drag race car off and said it costs  $40,000. The interviewer said a $40,000 hobby wow! He said yea well it's what I do in my spare time but hey, when it's time to rock and roll....it's time to rock and roll.....I told somebody, yea he knows what pays  for all that stuff! He had a beard a few years ago but Frank Beard was mostly clean shaven . I always thought it ironic that the only member without a long beard was named beard! LOL!

On 10/29/2010 at 6:02 PM, HossC said:

I'll start with a song that needs no introduction:
 

 

News is just breaking that Country legend Dolly Parton has died at the ago of 80. Above is the song with which I started this thread.