Tradition

OK, I know that this may be a bit challenging to some of you, but this is as big a part of me as Keith, Pete and John.

Most Irish folk music is performed with a disturbing lack of heart and an embarrassing level of earnest reverence. The Clancy Brothers avoided the amateurish sanctimony of much of what we hear whenever we walk into an Irish boutique.

The Clancy's salad days were during the folk revival of the late fifties and early sixties (Liam is heavily featured in Scorsese's' Dylan documentary) and they benefited, I think, from members who tried hard to avoid folk music - Liam was an actor and Northerner Tommy Makem came out of a Music Hall background. They understood that sincerity is not enough.

This is a beautiful love song and definitely the sweetest thing that you'll hear here this month.

and you can't really love the Pogues if you don't know what they based their career on (and against).