Song of the Day 3/17: The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, “Brennan on the Moor”
Sure, celebrating St. Paddy’s Day by partying is an American invention, but so is an important element of this traditional Irish outlaw ballad. The song was popularized by a Clancy Brothers recording released in 1961 (this video is from 1963) and can be traced to broadsides published in the 1860s, though it tells of events of a half-century earlier. In the early Irish versions, the brave and undaunted Brennan is betrayed by a man. In American versions published soon after, his betrayer becomes a “false-hearted woman.”
Why do the Clancys sing the American version? Like many folk songs, “Brennan on the Moor” was saved from extinction by traveling folk-song collectors, but it was saved from obscurity by Burl Ives, who recorded it in 1949 for his LP “Wayfaring Stranger.” The original broadside ran to 12 stanzas. Ives trimmed it to five, but also added a new final verse that never appeared in any of the scores of known variants; in the album’s liner notes, Ives attributed it to author and screenwriter MacKinlay Kantor. Late in their career the Clancy Brothers began using the extra stanza as well.
Hardcore Dylan fans might recognize the melody, which Dylan repurposed for a song he called “Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie.” Dylan recorded it in 1962, but it was available only on bootlegs until 1991.
That brings back so many memories! Here are the Clancys and Tommy Makem on the Ed Sullivan Show in March, 1961. Sixty years ago!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhCtS7lP4Aw
This was written by Rick Moran, on the death of Tommy Makem:
“,,,their music inspired a far more personal journey than the great issues being illuminated by the Pete Seegers and Peter Paul and Marys of the folk music scene. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem’s music opened the door to discovering my family’s Irish heritage and helped us all take enormous pride in who we were and where we came from…for the Moran family, the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem opened up an entirely new world, a means of discovering our past.
Their music was not at all like the melodramatic “American” Irish music we were all familiar with. Their songs were of the real Ireland – a place of pain and suffering, of oppression, and a kind of fatalism that seems to me unique to the Irish people.”
My uncle, Neil McKenzie, wrote and directed an adaptation of Frank O’Connor’s story ‘Guests of the Nation’ for an off-Broadway production. Liam Clancy appeared in it, and won an Obie (Off-Broadway) award for his performance, which included music. My uncle Neil won an Obie Award as well.