Zevon Song of the Week #25
haro...@yahoo.ca
Category: Satire
>From Wikipedia:
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McGillycuddy's Reeks (Na Cruacha Dubha, meaning "The Black Tops") are a
mountain range in County Kerry, Ireland. Stretching slightly over 19 km
(12 miles), they include the highest mountain in Ireland
(Carrantuohill, at 1,039 m), the two other 1,000 m peaks existing in
Ireland (Beenkeragh at 1,010 m, and Caher at 1,001 m), and over 100
other Hewitts (peaks of over 2,000 ft). The mountains, part of the
Armorican Highlands, are of glacial-carved sandstone and are situated
on the Iveragh peninsula near the Lakes of Killarney.
The name of the range dates to the eighteenth century, from the Irish
Clan Macgillicuddy (or McGillicuddy) which owned land in this part of
County Kerry for a long time prior, and continued to do so until the
extreme latter part of the twentieth century.
"MacGillycuddy's Reeks" is also the name of a song on Warren Zevon's
album My Ride's Here. The song is set on the Iveragh peninsula, also
mentioning "Killarney shore" and Inisfallen.
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Of all the authors Warren teamed up with for the My Ride's Here album
in 2001, Paul Muldoon is perhaps the most distinguished. The
Zevon/Muldoon team resulted in two songs on MRH, the other being the
title track. Winner of the 2003 Pulitzer for poetry, Muldoon possesses
a writing style known for "difficulty, allusion, casual use of
extremely obscure or archaic words, understated wit, punning, and deft
technique in meter and slant-rhyme." (Wikipedia)
Another (personal) reading of this description could be "I have no
idea what the $%^(@ he's talking about."
It's probably safe to assume that the lyrics are Muldoon and the
melody is Zevon. The song could just as easily be classified as another
love-gone-wrong lament, except that the inclusion of EKGs, dot-com
companies, the NASDAQ, and merged PLCs ("public limited company", a
type of business organization in the UK and Ireland) is enough to add
this one to the satire category.
Judging by the fact that Warren performed the song several times in
concert, and also chose to perform it for his second appearance on the
Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn in June, 2002 (in February of 2000,
he had played I Was In The House When The House Burned Down on
Kilborn's show), he was quite pleased with the song.
Like many of the songs on MRH, Macgillycuddy's Reeks features Sheldon
Gomberg on bass and Late Show with David Letterman house band member
Anton Fig on drums. Additionally, Katy Salvidge plays both pennywhistle
and fiddle on both this song and I Have To Leave. Ms. Salvidge later
teamed up with Jordan for a moving live performance of Keep Me In Your
Heart at a Mesothelioma Symposium in 2004.
Macgillycuddy's Reeks is most notable for its Celtic flavouring. For
the Kilborn appearance, Warren brought with him noted sideman and tour
mate Matt Cartsonis, no stranger to fiddle playing himself.
There's been some discussion here about the nature of My Ride's
Here as an album. It comes across as an interesting collection of songs
that do not necessarily cohere. Macgillycuddy's Reeks is track #3. It
is followed by the HST collaboration You're A Whole Different Person
When You're Scared, which is in turn followed by Hit Somebody! (The
Hockey Song). That's one unusual troika, or, in hockey terminology,
hat trick.
Whatever one's feelings about the album, and taking note that Warren
himself was somewhat critical of the result, it's clear that he
treasured the opportunity to work with the likes of Muldoon, Thompson,
and Hiaasen. One time on Letterman, Warren quipped "Hey, I'm a
poet", which is is one of the many ways he saw himself. Working with
one of Ireland's preeminent poets must have been a joy for him. It
wasn't too bad for us either.
Categories to date
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Addiction and Recovery: 2
Cover: 2
Family: 1
Geopolitical: 1
History: 1
Law and Order: 1
Love-Gone-Wrong: 6
Mortality: 2
Satire: 3
Social Commentary: 5
Sports: 1
Joanne Corsano
>Macgillycuddy's Reeks
>
>Category: Satire
I don't have too much to say about this song. I do like it and I
enjoy the silliness of the lyrics. Although Zevon didn't write the
lyrics, this still qualifies as one of those Zevonian juxtapositions
of two very different elements: the very modern and technological
lyrics are combined with a traditional sounding Celtic musical
arrangement (as well as what sounds like a traditional Celtic title).
This song and a few others from around the same time period ("Monkey
Wash Donkey Rinse" for example) represent Warren's exploration of a
Celtic style of music. Warren used a country music style on quite a
few songs; he used blues on quite a few songs; other songwriters use
reggae or other musical styles; but toward the end of his career
Zevon was also starting to experiment with Celtic music.
I liked the experiment; and it is one of the great sadnesses of
Warren's untimely death that he never had the chance to explore this
musical style to a greater degree.
Joanne
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