Bono Bloody Bono

Earlier this year, Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTE, announced its plans for a new TV series that is currently being broadcast on its main channel. In an effort to find out who Irish people consider the greatest ever Irish person, the station conducted a poll back in March that would whittle down their shortlist of forty to a more manageable five. The quite unusual list of forty was composed of politicians, historical figures, sports stars, writers and a rather large number of entertainment figures. These entertainers included such internationally known figures as Liam Neeson, Phil Lynott and Saint Bob Geldof, but also such bizarre choices as Daniel O’Donnell, Joe Dolan and Ronan bloody Keating. Eyebrows were raised when a preliminary list of ten featured the late Boyzone singer Stephen Gately and bloody Bono. The madness continued when the U2 singer made it into the top five along with four other Irish men and women whose claims to greatness are far more deserving. Those four include two men who were actually born in the United Kingdom and only one woman, but I think it’s fair to say that any one of James Connolly, Michael Collins, John Hume or Mary Robinson would be worthy winners of this dubious award. It’s the general public who’ll be choosing the victor, however, so there’s every chance that the man born Paul Hewson could yet emerge as the winner

Letting Off Steam While Getting Steamed

A bar in Spain has come up with an unusual marketing plan for these recessionary times. Customers at the Casa Pocho bar in Cullera, southern Spain, are encouraged to come in for a drink and to insult the staff while they’re at it. Free drinks will be given to patrons who can come up with novel or humorous ways of verbally abusing the bar staff. To be frank, I experience this every time I go to The Abbey Bar in Galbally, Co Limerick. The customers are often quite explicit and forthright in their criticisms and demands of the bar staff who, to be fair, are well able to give it back. I also experience it every time I go to The Wild Onion in Limerick, and they don’t even serve alcohol there. I’d be quite willing to return the abuse, but I’d really miss the omelettes if I got barred. Here’s a mix of abusive tunes to get you in the mood should you decide to visit the Casa Pocho. Some of the songs are harmless, others are witty or funny, while a number of them are downright offensive and contain language that some people might find offensive. Happy listening, you miscreants!

01 Waitress In The Sky – The Replacements

02 You Talk Too Much – Sultans of Ping F.C.

03 Piss On You – The Wannadies

04 Tell That Girl to Shut Up – Holly & the Italians

05 Hey (Shut The Fuck Up Boy) – Peter, Bjorn & John

06 Guess Who Batman (Fuck You Very Much) – Lily Allen

07 Fuck Me Pumps – Amy Winehouse

08 Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole – Martha Wainwright

09 Rufus Is A Tit Man (live) – Loudon Wainwright III

10 Your Feet’s Too Big – Fats Waller

11 Hound Dog – Big Mama Thornton

12 Road Rage – Catatonia

13 Why D’Ya Do It? – Marianne Faithfull

14 How Do You Sleep? – John Lennon

15 Short People – Randy Newman

16 Brilliant Mistake – Elvis Costello

17 Positively 4th Street – Bob Dylan

18 Under My Thumb – The Rolling Stones

19 Fortunate Son – CCR

20 Common People – Pulp

21 You’re So Vain (Carly Simon cover) – The Feeling

22 Fucker – Eels

23 Fuck You, It’s Over – Glasvegas

A Song for Europe

This weekend the 54th Eurovision Song Contest (Concours Eurovision de la Chanson) takes place in Moscow, Russia (la Russie). Ireland (l’Irlande) is one of 42 countries that will compete in this year’s competition. It has always been more about style over substance and has become, in recent years, more about politics than entertainment. For example, one of the rules of the competition states that each act can have no more than six members on stage during their performance. That’s one trophy that Manchester United won’t win this year. C’est ci bon!

The first nine years of the competition were unremarkable, but two exciting events occurred in 1965. First, France Gall won the second of Luxembourg’s five titles with a wonderful song written by Serge Gainsbourg, Poupée de cire, poupée de son. Second, Ireland entered the competition for the first time. Despite stiff competition from France (La France), the United Kingdom (le Royaume-Uni) and Luxembourg (le Luxembourg), Ireland has been victorious more times than any other European nation with seven wins. The emergence of the Celtic Tiger (le Tigre celtique) brought four wins in the space of five years from 1992-1996. “Why Me?” asked Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTE, as it cost them a fortune to host the competition on each of the four occasions following those wins. Pourquoi moi?

The Eurovision Song Contest seemed quite glamorous in the 70s and 80s when I didn’t know a lot about music (or glamour). It even produced a few good songs back then. Apart from the Irish ones, however, the last winner who’s tune I can recall is Germany’s Ein bißchen Frieden from 1982. I haven’t heard any of this year’s entries, including the Irish one, and I have no intention of tuning in on Saturday (samedi). I understand that some of the power has been taken away from the voting public and handed back to a panel of “experts” in each country. This should make the whole thing more fair, although I’m sure that RTE will be hoping that Ireland don’t make it Number Eight in 2009. Et maintenant, je vous presente six chansons pour votre plaisir

UPDATE: RTE can bring a sigh of relief as Ireland’s entry by Sinéad Mulvey & Black Daisy failed to make it through to the final

The first nine years of the competition were won by ballads, so when Ireland entered in 1965 they must have thought thay had a good chance. However, it wasn’t a ballad that won, but an uptempo little ditty sung by France Gall, Poupée de cire, poupée de son. Serge Gainsbourg’s song can simply be translated as Wax Doll, Bran Doll, but it can also refer to the singer who is like a doll that is being manipulated by the songwriter, a puppet on a string, if you will. The song has been covered quite a bit over the years, including by the Canadian band, Arcade Fire. Here is a great live version by a band from Scotland (l’Écosse), Belle and Sebastian. It appears on their dvd, For Fans Only. Onze points

Poupée De Cire, Poupée De Son – Belle & Sebastian

In 1973, ABBA entered the Swedish national song contest, but only finished third with their song, Ring Ring. The following year they were successful with Waterloo and went on to win the Eurovision in Brighton, England (l’Angleterre). The title of the song refers to the Battle of Waterloo which saw Napoleon Bonaparte defeated, thwarted, outfought, outwitted, hoist with his own petard, placed among the also-rans. I suppose you could say that he met his Waterloo. ABBA went on to worldwide success and are one of only a few acts to achieve any credibility following Eurovision participation. Here’s a version of the song sung in French. Dix points

Waterloo (French Version) – ABBA

By 1967, the United Kingdom had been runners-up on five of the previous eight occasions before Sandie Shaw won it with Puppet on a String. Shaw was not a fan of the song’s lyric and bouncy tune, which was co-written by a bloke from Scotland and a fellow from Ireland called Phil Coulter. Another Irishman, Sean Dunphy, came second with If I Could Choose. Here’s a reggae version of Puppet on a String by John Holt. Nul points

Puppet on a String – John Holt

In 1970, the tables would be turned when the United Kingdom finished runners-up to Ireland. Rosemary Brown, only eighteen, used the stage name of Dana to bring Ireland’s first win with All Kind of Everything. The only controversial aspect of this episode, and perhaps of her whole career, was that she was actually from Derry in the UK. The song has a rather annoying tune with banal lyrics. She sings that “all kinds of everything” remind her of her lover. These include: things of the sea; things of the sky; Monday, Tuesday, in fact, every day; the seasons; weather. You name it. Everything reminds her of this poor fellow. There was nothing that didn’t remind her of him. It must have been hard for her to concentrate. Dana went on to have a successful career in the music industry before shocking everyone by announcing her candidacy for the Irish presidency in 1997. Even though she only came third this time it paved the way for her to become an MEP for Connaught-Ulster in 1999. Her political outlook is even more conservative and religious than her music. So, here’s Sinéad O’Connor singing All Kinds of Everything with Terry Hall. Neuf points

All Kinds of Everything – Sinéad O’Connor & Terry Hall

The person saddled with the rather dubious distinction of being the most successful person in the history of the Eurovision Song Contest is from Ireland. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to win the contest once is misfortunate; to win it twice seems like carelessness. In fact, Johnny Logan won it twice as a performer and once more as a writer for Linda Martin in 1992. His first success came in 1980 with a song written by Shay Healy, What’s Another Year? I can remember the song at the time, although I thought it was an optimistic song that looked forward to another January. It’s actually quite a lonely, existential song and this is certainly borne out in Shane MacGowan’s interpretation. Shane sounds pretty weary in his version. In fact, he sounds like he’s just woken up and hasn’t even had a drink yet. Six points

What’s Another Year? – Shane MacGowan

Ireland’s dominance of the competition in the 90s and the financial burden that hosting it put on RTE inspired an episode of the sitcom, Father Ted. In A Song For Europe, Ted and Dougal try to write a song to enter in the Irish heat of a competition called Eurosong. They come up with an effort called My Lovely Horse, but struggle to find a tune. Then, Ted overhears a catchy little number that Dougal continuously plays on his record player. Ted discovers that it is the b-side of a song that came fifth in the Norwegian contest in 1976 and that everyone connected with the song died in a plane crash! So, he rips off the tune and our boys are on their way to success. Or are they? You can see what they came up with here and see some inspiration for the images here. The song was written by the show’s writers, Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews, along with The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon. It appears as an extra track on the Gin Soaked Boy cd single and is less than a minute and a half long. Douze points!

My Lovely Horse – The Divine Comedy

I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked

Last week, Irish thoughts were distracted from the economic recession by the rugby team’s Grand Slam success. This week, Irish minds have been occupied by a couple of paintings of Brian Cowen that depict the Taoiseach in a less than flattering light. This “controversy”, which will surely be dubbed Cowengate, arose on Monday. RTE News carried a report about the erection of two different portraits of Mr Cowen that mysteriously appeared in two Dublin art galleries earlier that day. Apparently, both had been put up by an individual who simply entered each gallery and nailed the paintings to the walls. Neither painting stayed up too long and it is not known whether or not they were well-hung. On the next night’s news, RTE apologised to the Taoiseach and his family for the manner of their reporting of the incident. It has since emerged that the person behind this prank is a teacher and artist named Conor Casby.

Now, I’m all for constructive criticism of the government and its leadership. I’m glad that we live in a country where we can criticise and make fun of those in charge and not fear the consequences. I’m only too aware that for many years art, literature, film and music had been subject to censorship because the State did not want to subject impressionable minds to what it perceived as pornography. The long arm of the mass media means that content that would have previously been unavailable is now easily accessible. The internet has also made it easier for the public to get its voice heard without the assistance of regular media outlets.

Nevertheless, I disagree that Casby’s paintings could be construed as satire. I fail to see the satire in Casby’s paintings. In my opinion, both of them exhibit crudeness and toilet humour at the expense of anything remotely witty or humorous. In one of the paintings, a caricature of Cowen is seen with a large pot-belly, holding a pair of underpants in his hand. In the other, he is seen naked on a toilet bowl, holding a roll of toilet paper in his hand. How is this satirical? What deeper meaning can be construed from these images? I believe that the current government should have the piss taken out of it. But, I’d like to see it done with a bit of wit and intelligence. In the meantime, here are a few tunes for your perusal

I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked – Ida Maria

Naked, If I Want To (Moby Grape cover) – Cat Power

Naked As We Came (Iron Wine cover) – Katherine Donovan