A tune I’ve always liked. I’ve always been curious about the title, though; could someone tell me more about what “band boy” means, here? O’Neill transcribed it, at least, so I’m pretty sure the likes of Menudo isn’t what’s meant.
An odd title, which Fiddler’s Companion doesn’t shed much light on: http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/MY_MZ.htm
The B part is basically Geese in the Bog.
Maybe someone missed the punctuation: “My Love is a Band, Boy”. Aka “The Groupie’s Lament”.
Nah. It’s a misprint. He meant one of these fellas:
Banda sinaloense! Ayyyyy!
Despite some spelling issues, the Irish name offered - “Is Buacaill Ceol Mo Gradsa” - says “music boy”. But maybe that’s idiomatic for “band member”?
Why, so it is!
I find O’Neill’s remark that it should be played “playfully” to be rather odd, because the melody strikes me as wistful and a bit sad, and that suggests to me that the young lady has learned all too well that giving your heart to a working musician is not the best of ideas for a stable life. Groupie’s lament, indeed.
BTW, are there words to this thing?
Menudo? One Direction, you mean. Get with the times.
Don’t know of any words to it, but I haven’t really searched yet.
Don’t know if that’s even possible any more. I asked a young fellow recently if he knew who Angela Lansbury was. That was an exercise in futility.
Hmmm … she’s still very popular with the kids over here. For Murder She Wrote, of course, not for anything else. They’ve never heard of Bedknobs and Broomsticks. 
Excuses first:
I don’t know the tune
This was one take only
And no, I still only have totally crappy equipment (sorry Mr Guru Sir 
)
Still, the tune’s caught my fancy now, so here goes:
There you have it. 
The version I have is just a touch different in some minor details, informed by Mickie and Elizabeth Zekley’s arrangement from the recording Fiona’s Folly. It was one of the first airs I ever learned. Zekley lingers on it a bit too somnolently for my taste, though, so I ramp it up a tad, but still keep to unmetered phrasing while playing it definitely slower than Ben did here. I try to evoke the wistfulness I mentioned earlier.
What, no tubas?
I think that would be brilliant, actually. In an evil way. 
Interesting. I’ve always played it as a rather quick waltz. Not my idea of an air. But then I didn’t notice the Geese in the Bog connection either so…
Is the disco/dance mix version renamed My Love is a Club Kid?
not on English concertina and Autoharp…
Guess it goes to show that it’s all in where you pick it up, right?
You got that right!
Oh good.
I’m struggling to imagine unmeteredness for this tune. Could you link to an example? I think with a lot of the airs notated in O’Neills there is a modern tendency to remove meter when at the time the things would have been in strict tempo (or at least recognisable meter). There aren’t too many recordings of airs from that era, but in any case the term “air” meant something different then. It simply meant “tune” and was often used to include any tune type, including all of the dance tunes that form the vast bulk of trad music as played today. O’Neill tended to use the term “air” for tunes that didn’t fit into other tune types. Many of the airs collected by O’Neill that don’t fit into the now usual categories of reels, jigs, hornpipes etc, or that aren’t slow airs, based on song tunes, are now no longer played. It’s a shame. I have a few, so someone plays them at least.
As played by Ben it sounds to me like it would have words in English rather than Irish. In the style of, say, Cathal McConnell. Does that make sense ?
Edit to add - there is a page on mudcat that gives “I’ll marry my Johnny” as an alternative title.