{"id":1701,"date":"2008-03-17T15:34:15","date_gmt":"2008-03-17T15:34:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/17\/danny_boy\/"},"modified":"2024-11-27T17:58:03","modified_gmt":"2024-11-27T22:58:03","slug":"danny_boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/17\/danny_boy\/","title":{"rendered":"Danny Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Happy St. Patrick&#8217;s Day<\/strong> from the Muppets (via <a title=\"Spelled\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theseanshow.net\">Sean<\/a>):<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tPB4RWrJI7o?si=gZa5kktv5qcH-K9h\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>I can&#8217;t stop laughing once Beaker chimes in. It\u2019s perfect.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/img\/danny_boy.html\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/img\/danny_boy-thumb-240x311.jpg\" alt=\"Danny Boy\" width=\"50%\" height=\"311\" align=\"right\" vspace=\"5\" \/><\/a>As you might imagine, I have a bit of a love\/hate relationship with <i><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Danny_Boy\">Danny Boy<\/a><\/i>, since it\u2019s effectively been my family nickname my entire life. The story goes that my Uncle John came waltzing in the room singing it at one point when my mom was pregnant with me, and it stuck.<\/p>\n<p>It is a lovely little ditty, though, if it\u2019s done right. Most versions of it I run across are a little over-the-top <i>Oirish-y<\/i> or \u2014 even worse \u2014 a little too vocally precise but lacking in heart. (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shane_Mcgowan\">Shane McGowan<\/a> <a title=\"link to iTunes Store\" href=\"http:\/\/phobos.apple.com\/WebObjects\/MZStore.woa\/wa\/viewAlbum?i=78919213&amp;id=78919366&amp;s=143441\">gets it right<\/a>, if you ask me: a little sad, a little sweet, a little boozy, and a little rough around the edges.)<\/p>\n<p>My favorite version is actually by <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Harry_Belafonte\">Harry Belafonte<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i><a href=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/media\/Danny%20Boy.mp3\">Danny Boy<\/a><\/i> \u2014 Harry Belafonte<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I never really appreciated the song very much until one of the times I saw <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Joe_Jackson_%28musician%29\">Joe Jackson<\/a> in concert in concert. He sometimes does this brilliant bar-by-bar analysis of <i>Danny Boy<\/i> (well, I guess technically it&#8217;s an analysis of <i><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Londonderry_Air\">The Londonderry Air<\/a><\/i>, which is the original melody that was grabbed for <i>Danny Boy<\/i> in 1913), detailing exactly why it&#8217;s the perfect example of a Irish ballad that can &#8220;bring tears to a glass eye&#8221;, as an intro to the Faustian story in a song of his own:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i><a href=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/media\/The%20Man%20Who%20Wrote%20Danny%20Boy.mp3\">The Man Who Wrote Danny Boy<\/a><\/i> \u2014 Joe Jackson<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a title=\"link to iTunes Store\" href=\"http:\/\/phobos.apple.com\/WebObjects\/MZStore.woa\/wa\/viewAlbum?i=3444853&amp;id=3444875&amp;s=143441\">Rufus Wainwright<\/a> and <a title=\"link to iTunes Store\" href=\"http:\/\/phobos.apple.com\/WebObjects\/MZStore.woa\/wa\/viewAlbum?i=40286718&amp;id=40286698&amp;s=143441\">House of Pain<\/a> do songs called <i>Danny Boy<\/i>, but neither one is quite the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Happy St. Patrick&#8217;s Day from the Muppets (via Sean): I can&#8217;t stop laughing once Beaker chimes in. It\u2019s perfect. As you might imagine, I have a bit of a love\/hate relationship with Danny Boy, since it\u2019s effectively been my family nickname my entire life. The story goes that my Uncle John came waltzing in the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/2008\/03\/17\/danny_boy\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Danny Boy&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ultramedia","category-ultrapersonal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1701"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71381,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1701\/revisions\/71381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ultrasparky.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}