Oldie but Goodie

This Irish Rovers album may date back to 1971, but those boys from Ireland were as adept at spinning those old reels as they are now. Aside from the difference in the band membership, the most noticeable difference between the Irish Rovers then and now is the voices. Joe's voice has already matured to that deep tone which is so ideal for those lovely ballads, but the others have notably higher voices, to the point that they almost sound like a bunch of teenagers. Of course, in 1971, they weren't too far removed from that stage in their lives.

The First of the Irish Rovers begins with The Irish Rover, a rowdy sea song about a downed vessel. I'm not sure where the Rovers got their name, but the song certainly suits them. They are not introduced as "rowdy" and "rollicking" for nothing!

Next comes I Don't Mind If I Do, a clever little ditty in the tradition of the tunes of "that great Irish singer, Bing Crosby". Each verse ends with one of the characters in the song uttering this phrase, and it leads from a shy man paying court to a young lady to his marrying her and beginning to think about having children. Great song.

The Rattling Bog is one of those terrific songs that have essentially no meaning and are just a test to see how good your memory and your breath are. When the song has gone just about as far as it can, its cumulative lyrics are as follows: "Oh, roll, the rattlin' bog, the bog down in the valley-o. Oh, roll, the rattlin' bog, the bog down in the valley-o. Now on this bug there was a hair, a rare hair, a rattlin' hair. Hair on the bug and the bug on the leaf and the leaf on the twig and the twig on the branch and the branch on the limb and the limb on the tree and the tree in the bog and the bog down in the valley-o." Phew!

After that exhausting number, the Rovers slow things down by pulling My Boy Willie out of their bag of tricks. This is one of the most beautiful -- and most tragic -- songs that the Irish Rovers have ever sung, and they certainly do the 100-plus-year-old song justice. A tragedy about true love lost at sea, it will bring a tear to the eye of any romantic.

Coulter's Candy is the only song on this album which was also featured on my favorite Rovers album, Tales to Warm Your Mind. That album is, unfortunately, very difficult to find, but a good number of the tracks have a place on other albums. This particular version of the song is different from the Tales version in that it includes an opening and closing spoken monologue, a rhyming recounting of an encounter with a group of boys playing football spoken over the soft singing of the chorus. This is a song about nostalgia, taking the listeners back to the days when they were "l'il" and could buy a bag of candy for a penny.

Patsy Fegan (last name mis-spelled to accommodate censors...argh!) is a lively tune about a young man named Pat who is out to prove to the world that he is "a decent Irish man." Apparently the world agrees with the first two counts, but he can't seem to shake the label of "boy". One of these days...

Many Young Men of Twenty is a sad song about emigration, recalling all the young Irishmen who left their homeland in search of employment in America and never made it back.

Nancy Whiskey is about a woman who brings ruin in her wake, much like the "ficklesome damsel" in the Rover favorite Black Velvet Band. I'm not really sure what it is about Nancy Whiskey, but I just can't get into it. In fact, it really annoys me. I would've left it out.

My Old Man's a Dustman is the hilarious tale of an elderly garbage collector who's got enough spunk and spirit to make this dirty job loads of fun. The song is preluded by Will's remark that "a lot of people go over to England and get great jobs over there -- look at Prince Philip for instance" but that the "best bloody job" a man could get was that esteemed position of dustman, aka garbage collector. Probably the funniest track on the album.

Mick Maguire is the tale of a young man with a nice inheritance who courts a girl and marries her. This is a very agreeable situation for the girl's mother until she discovers that Mick has already spent his fortune. Then she becomes the mother-in-law from...well, let's just say she's not very nice!

And finally, Donald Where's Your Trousers is the woeful song of a kilt-clad Celt who is always being teased because of his legwear. This rather silly tune brings a close to a fine Rovers album. Unless, of course, you purchase it as a part of the cassette The First of the Irish Rovers / The Unicorn, in which case it only takes up the first side. In either case, once you've heard The First of the Irish Rovers, you can be sure that it won't be the last you'll hear of them!