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Christmas
Lullaby
(Shane MacGowan)
This ep also includes an early version of "Rock
and Roll Paddy," a tune that was later released on
Crock of Gold. Perhaps more
importantly, it was a charity effort, with a portion (10
pence) of the purchase price being donated to the Bannside
Development Agency located in Portadown, County Armagh
in the north of Ireland. The Agency is attempting to bridge
some of the battle lines between the republicans and
unionists.
Shane's official page also has a version of the lyrics,
my interpretation differs a bit.
It seems I could freeze
out
It seems like I'll freeze
Stumbling I fell down
And prayed on my knees
The ice wagon's coming
To pick up the stiffs
Had a chat with an oul' one
He was gone in a jiff
And Santa and his reindeer
Jumped over the moon
So hush little child
Santa's coming here soon
chorus:
Too-ra loo-ra loo-ra
Too-ra loo-ra li
Too-ra loo-ra loo-ra
It's a Christmas lullaby
Too-ra loo-ra loo-ra
Too-ra loo-ra li
Too-ra loo-ra loo-ra
It's a Christmas lullaby
Shane "borrows" the music for the verses from "Lucy" a
tune written by Nick Cave, Blixa Bargeld, and Roland Wolf
and released on Cave's "The Good Son" lp (1990). Shane sang
it on the "It's a Wonderful World" single he and Cave
released together in 1992 (Nick does a pretty good cover of
"Rainy Night in Soho" on the same release). The chorus is
lifted from the song "Too Ra Loo Ra" by James Royce Shannon
(1881-1946) and premiered in Chauncey Olcott's production
of Shameen Dhu ("Black-haired Jimmy"). It was
popularized by Bing Crosby in the movie Going My Way
(1944), a flick which won 7 Academy Awards, including Best
Picture, Best Director, and a Best Actor nod to Crosby.
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I hope you grow up angry
Just like your dear old dad
I hope you grow up brave and strong
Not like me - all weak and sad
You said "Daddy, daddy,
You're stinking of booze."
I kissed him and said, "Kid,
I was born to lose.
But you have a future
And a big world to save
And I hope you'll remember
All the love that I gave."
chorus
Here's to all the little kids
Who haven't got no clothes
Here's to all the little kids
Who haven't got no homes
It's Christmas time in Palestine
It's Christmas in Beirut
They're scrapping 'round for rice
Not for tutti fruits
And the Christmas lights, they blew up
Now the lecky's all gone dead
I look like a coal miner
And I've a pain inside my head
chorus
"Lecky" is London slang for "electricity."
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Hippy
Hippy Shake
(Chan Romero)
This song was released with much success by The
Swinging Blue Jeans in 1963, reaching #1 in the UK in
1964, and charting in something like nineteen other
countries at one point or another. It was written by
Robert
Lee (Chan) Romero and released originally in 1959. In
the U.S., Romero was a pioneer in the chicano strain of
early rock and roll which followed in the wake of Richie
("La Bamba") Valens.
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A
Man Called Horse
(Shane MacGowan)
This one appears on the "Lonesome Highway" cd single.
It's a close cousin to "Private Eye," a song Shane wrote and
recorded with the Nips (one of his pre-Pogues bands).
"Horse" has the same basic structure and theme as the
earlier tune and some of the same lyrics (see below; thanks
Matt for the heads up). At one point, it was apparently
called "Murder in the First Degree" (that's how he
introduced it live. Thanks Paul).
The title might derive from the movie of the same name,
directed by Elliot Silverstein and starring Richard Harris.
Released in 1970 (and spawning two sequels), the plot
follows the adventures of Harris as an English aristocrat
hitting the open plains of America in the early nineteenth
century. He is captured by the Sioux and eventually converts
to their way of life. The movie's general theme of the
corrupt European adopting the "purer" life of the indigenous
peoples, although not nearly as pervasive as the idea of the
superiority of European "civilization" over native
"savagery," nonetheless became a fairly common staple of
European writing almost from the beginning of European
contact with non-European peoples. One of my favorite
examples of the latter comes from English explorer Thomas
Herbert. During his travels through South Africa in the1600s
he met the Khoi-San people, a native group whose language is
noted for its "clicks." In trying to describe it, he relates
how it was "apishly sounded" and "very hard to be
counterfeited" since it was voiced "like the Irish" (taken
from Herbert, Some Yeares Travels, London, 1632). An
example of the former tendency can be seen in Jean-Jacques
Rousseau's "Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of
Inequality Among Men" (1755). In Note XVI of that work
he points out that "It is a most remarkable thing that for
all the years the Europeans have been tormenting themselves
to bring the Savages of the various parts of the world over
to their way of life, they should not yet have been able to
win over a single one of them, not even with the assistance
of Christianity... whereas one reads in a thousand places
that Frenchmen and other Europeans have voluntarily taken
refuge among these Nations, spent their entire lives there,
without any longer being able to leave such a strange way of
life, and one even sees sensible Missionaries regret with
emotion the calm and innocent days they spent among those
much despised peoples..."
Here's what I come up with for the lyrics.
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Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
"Noel" here may refer to a favorite barkeep of Shane's at
Filthy McNasty's and Dillon's (thanks to Paul for passing
that along).
My name's Horse, six foot
three
I'm no coward and I walk free
Be nice to me baby, better be nice to me
Be nice to me baby, better be nice to me
You know, you don't mess around with me
In "Private Eye" the lines are "my name is Cool, six foot
three and you don't mess around with me"
chorus
Murder, murder, murder in the first
degree
Murder, murder, murder in the first degree
Murder, murder, murder in the first
degree
The "murder" chorus is a new addition as it doesn't
appear in "Private Eye." In many western criminal justice
systems, the law has several gradations in its treatment of
those who cause the death of another person, ranging from
manslaughter to murder. Murder in the first degree means
that the person killed another person; the person killed the
other person with malice aforethought; and the killing was
premeditated. Murder in the second degree has identical
criteria, the big difference occurs in the penalty phase of
the trial -- the penalties for murder in the first degree
are much more severe. The decision of which degree to use in
the indictment is basically up to the prosecutor.
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My name's Horse, six foot
three
The tough get going when the going gets tough
Be nice to me baby, better be nice to me
Be nice to me baby, better be nice to me
You know, you don't mess around with me
I haven't been able to decipher the exact wording of the
second line in this verse in "Private Eye," but Shane sings
it exactly the same way in both songs.
Murder, murder, murder in the
first degree
Murder, murder, murder in the first degree
Murder, murder, murder in the first degree
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
My name's Horse, six foot
three,
you don't mess around with me
Be nice to me baby, better be nice to me
Be nice to me baby, better be nice to me
You know, you don't mess around with me
Murder, murder, murder in the first
degree
Murder, murder, murder in the first degree
Murder, murder, murder in the first degree
Murder, murder, murder in the first degree
Murder, murder, murder in the first degree
Murder, murder, murder in the first degree
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
Big bad Noel
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Noel from Wexford (go raibh maith agat!) passed
along a great story about this song, and, with his kind
permission, I'm including it here (verbatim, with some minor
grammatical/editorial tweaking):
"It wasn't unknown for Shane to arrive at his
favorite north London Pub (Filthy McNasty's) at let's
just say unusual hours. The head bar man at the time was
a chap called Noel Byrne who was from a small place
outside Kilkenny city called Castlecomber. Most of Noel's
mates were from the same area so there was a good
contingent of Castlecomber men at the place. Anyhow a
particular colloquium of the area (Castlecomber) is to
refer to each other as Horse as in "What's the craic
Horse?" or "Give us a pint of Guinness there Horse" "No
problem Horse." In fact people who frequented the pub
would refer to the Castlecomber men as the Horses as in
"Where are the Horses tonight?" Meaning where was Noel
and the Castlecomber men tonight?
Anyhow one night Noel "Horse" was dead keen on going
out (to a night club or a gig or something) and was just
finishing up when Shane and the band arrived after
working late in the studio. Noel was less than happy to
say the least, especially as in a another couple of
minutes he would have been away, but now he would have to
stay and serve (He is Shane MacGowan after all).
Anyway as Noel threw out drinks (not literally but in a
less than friendly manner) to Shane and the band, Shane
could see that he had the "hump" so started singing "Big
bad Noel" which the rest of the band picked up on and
started singing as well.
Soon the few others (including myself) that were in
the pub joined in. I'm not sure if Shane started singing
it just to wind Noel up a bit more as he could see he was
in a bad humor (probably) or if it was an attempt to
cheer him out of his foul mood, but in any case, it did
cheer Noel up as he started laughing and, as they used to
say in the old days, a good time was had by all.
I have to be a little careful on the timing here as I
can't say for certain whether Shane went on to complete
the song (additional murder lyrics) that night and record
it following this incident or if they had recorded it or
most of it before the above incident and this just
cemented his discussion to include it on the B side of
"Lonesome Highway" with the additional lyrics
(murder) springing from the above (also Shane singing it
because he had just come from the studio and it was fresh
in his head).
What I can say for certain is it is definitely about
the barman Noel and my own belief is that "Murder in the
first degree" refers to the humor Noel was in on that
particular night and the rest of the lyrics as explained
(Horse as above, Noel [obviously]).
To summarize this song came from a need for a B side
on Lonesome Highway, Shane liking the song
obviously and the fact that it was a tribute/compliment
to the barman Noel was a bonus because Noel's services
would be often be required in the future. It would be
difficult at the best of times not to offer Shane a late
drink but after him writing a song about you (and that's
something not many could claim) harder still if not
impossible. I've lost touch with Noel and the
Castlecomber men over the years and I sometimes imagine
poor Noel drunk somewhere telling an unbelieving soul
that Shane MacGowan once wrote a song about him (Yeah
sure he did) but its true, he did, I was there!!!"
And we all wish we were as well.
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Padraic
Colum (1881-1972), from Co. Longfond in Ireland, was a poet,
novelist, playwright and political activist (he played a
role as a gunrunner in Howth in 1913). After moving to
Dublin he became active in the Gaelic League, forming
friendships with the likes of W.B. Yeats and Arthur Griffith
(one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916; Colum
published a biography of him in 1959). Colum emigrated to
the U.S. in 1914 and spent the rest of his life here.