Saturday, September 8, 2007

Will You Go, Lassie, Go, and We'll All Go Together


A lent copy of The Economist from this past summer (of all things) brought us the belated news of Irish singer Tommy Makem's passing in August and so our household this weekend has been filled with the sounds of his voice and that of his pals, the Clancy Brothers, of whom only one – Liam – remains.

Rebel Girl is more sentimental than one would imagine, so actual tears have been shed, though perhaps like most tears, some are for Makem and then some are for those others who she doesn't let herself cry for until the time is right.

Years ago, more than 20, Rebel Girl and Red Emma saw the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem performing at a community college, no less. It was grand. Drinking songs. Rebel Songs. Love songs. Good Stories. Red and Rebel wore their thrift store knock-offs of white Irish-knit Aran sweaters and looked, no doubt, absurd.

But they sang along to every song. Drinking, rebelling and loving it all.
Come all you young rebels, and list while I sing,
For the love of one's country is a terrible thing.
It banishes fear with the speed of a flame,
And it makes us all part of the patriot game
.
That night the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem concluded, as they often did, with "The Parting Glass:"
Oh all the comrades that e'er I've had, they are sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I've had, they would wish me one more day to stay
But since it falls unto my lot that I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and I'll softly call good night and joy be with you all…
…A man may drink and not be drunk, a man may fight and not be slain
A man may court a pretty girl and perhaps be welcomed back again
But since it has so ordered been by a time to rise and a time to fall
Come fill to me the parting glass, good night and joy be with you all
Will You Go, Lassie
Tommy at the White House, 1962

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought you guys were PUNKS.

Anonymous said...

You guys read The Economist?

Anonymous said...

You're writing a lot about death lately, like say the last year or so.

Anonymous said...

nice sweater!

AOR said...

Me, I can't afford The Economist, and I am one.

OK maybe I could but I'm still ticked off about that Irish famine thing their founders helped perpetuate with their free-trade-at-all-costs, Malthusian stance.

In its first years, The Economist was concerned about Ireland's "surplus population," and millions died with no more epitaph than that. Much of what Tommy Makem wrote about and from had its origins in that horror; it's nice the Irish occasionally get a nice obituary.

PS I met him once; it was a joy. There is almost no emotion from political anger to lost love to endless mourning to drunken hilarity that something of his doesn't go with.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...