I’m trying to learn it and you don’t see any clips of it on clips & snips. I don’t think the wandering whistler has it in the archive. (I do have a copy) It seems it is like the BG’s everyone liked it when they first heard it but won’t admit to it now, after hearing it for the 1000th time?
Aaron
It’s just been played to death.
It’s new to me 
everyone knows how to play it right? Is it like a pre-requisite? Celtic music 101?
Is it actually Irish, or is it music hall Irish? That’s been my assumption re why you never see or hear it in traditional circles, but I could be wrong.
Redwolf
On 2003-01-19 19:15, blackhawk wrote:
It’s just been played to death.
Which kind of raises another question. At the sessions I’ve been to, there are usually some folks just sitting around listening. When the fiddle player breaks into Irish Washerwoman, the crowd will “wake up” and start whooping and clapping along. So the question is, is it worth having some tunes that the “public” recognizes and can get into even if the more accomplished players are tired of them? Personally I like the crowd getting into the music, it makes things more exciting and enjoyable.
I posted this in another string, but it’s more relevant to this string.
Alternative lyrics to “The Irish Washerwoman”:
The Chemist’s Drinking Song (words: John A Carroll & Jordin Kare)
(tune: Irish Washerwoman)
Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,
Sodium Citrate, Ammonium Cyanide;
Mix 'em together and add some benzene
And top off the punch with trichloroeth’lene.
Got gassed up last night on some forfuryl alcohol,
Followed it up with a gallon of propanol,
Tanked up on hydrazine 'til after noon,
Then spat on the floor and blew up the saloon!
Para-dimethyl-amino-benzaldehyde,
Powdered aluminum, nitrogen iodide,
Chlorates, permanganates, nitrates galore;
Just swallow one drink and you’ll never need more.
Whiskey, tequila and rum are too tame;
No, the stuff that I drink must explode into flame
When I breathe and dissolve all the paint in the room,
And rattle the walls with a ground-shaking boom.
Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,
Go soak your head in a good strong insecticide;
Slosh it around and impregnate your brain
With dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane.
Keep your methanol, ethanol, n-butyl acetate,
None of them work I’m too hard to intoxicate.
I don’t consider a drink to be strong
If it’s carbon chains aren’t at least twelve atoms long.
Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde,
Methyl methacrylate, partly solidified,
Add copper sulfate for beautiful hues,
And drink it all down for those Plexiglass blues.
On 2003-01-19 19:46, Rando7 wrote:
On 2003-01-19 19:15, blackhawk wrote:
It’s just been played to death.Which kind of raises another question. At the sessions I’ve been to, there are usually some folks just sitting around listening. When the fiddle player breaks into Irish Washerwoman, the crowd will “wake up” and start whooping and clapping along. So the question is, is it worth having some tunes that the “public” recognizes and can get into even if the more accomplished players are tired of them? Personally I like the crowd getting into the music, it makes things more exciting and enjoyable.
I think it’s good to have a few readily recognizable tunes up your sleeve, even if they’ve been overdone or aren’t “authentically Irish.” It’s absolutely vital if you’re busking, or playing in a venue where requests will be solicited!
Redwolf
Or sometimes you just need a jig that your sister will recognize when she’s had a few drinks. Then she’ll get up and show everyone what she learned in step dancing classes 30 years ago. Make sure someone has the camcorder ready…
On 2003-01-19 19:46, Rando7 wrote:
On 2003-01-19 19:15, blackhawk wrote:
Washerwoman, the crowd will “wake up” and start whooping and clapping along. So the question is, is it worth having some tunes that the “public” recognizes and can get into even if the more accomplished players are tired of them? Personally I like the crowd getting into the music, it makes things more exciting and enjoyable.
Personally, I do like the tune. I like hearing it and playing it, but I’m in the distinct minority here.
I must say, I like “The Irish Washerwoman” very much.
There’s something in it that gets into my blood and makes me want to get up and dance. This may go back to when I was doing a lot of contra dancing. I didn’t know the tunes then, but “The Irish Washerwoman” (or some derivation close to it) may have been one that went along with one of my favorite dances.
Best wishes,
Jerry
On 2003-01-19 19:11, Bagfed wrote:
I don’t think the wandering whistler has it in the archive.
Actually, I do have a copy here</a](http://www.tinwhistler.com/music/sheet.asp?code=washerw">here</a)>
Been there since 7-28-2000
Don’t you think there comes a time when the “tired old tunes” have been ignored so long that they sound fresh to the newer players?
I had a blast at a contra dance last year when an old-time band played Arkansas Traveler.
I’ll bet Turkey in the Straw is one of those tunes, too. However, I don’t think I’ll ever recover from 2nd Grade music class (on those bullet-shaped, recorder-fingered, black plastic “Tonettes”) and Red River Valley played over and over, badly.
M
…but remember the Red River valley,
and the cowboy that loved you so true…
For a rendition of Irish Washerwoman by a promising young player, check out this thread: http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=9110&forum=1&start=15
On 2003-01-20 05:44, Walden wrote:
For a rendition of Irish Washerwoman by a promising young player, check out this thread: > http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic=9110&forum=1&start=15
Walden, that promising young player should be on American Idol!!!
~Larry
Here are some other, less chemical, alternative lyrics…
Oh, Mc Carthy is dead and Mc Guiness don’t know it,
McGuiness is dead and McCarthy don’t know it.
They’re both of them dead and they’re lying together,
And neither one knows that the other is dead.
Mercifully, there is only that one chorus…
My local session still play it a fair bit as part of the rapper set.
I have never heard the Irish Washerwoman played in a session here. Ever. Anywhere. I actually can’t remember how it goes offhand. But I do know that even the slightest mention of the name to anyone (that I know) who plays ITM here will get you a wince (sometimes, to be fair, there is an attempt to disguise this, if badly), followed by a hasty excuse about having to be somewhere - anywhere - else five minutes ago, and an amazingly quick exit, considering that they were playing uillean pipes.
Not sure why. Maybe this is one of those Area 51 phenomena… something went horribly wrong, but no-one’s prepared to admit exactly what…
Deirdre
It could also just be that it’s overplayed, but other overplayed tunes tend not to get the same vehemence of response…
I think that also this may be one of the (very few) ITM tunes that were collared by some misguided orchestral arranger at some time in the past, as being a perfect ‘Irish Medley’ tune for classically-immersed musicians under the misapprehension that 1)ITM is easy to play and 2) all you need to know is what page it’s on in the score… that’d explain some of the reaction, I think.
Feel free to choose whichever explanation tickles your fancy the most!
[ This Message was edited by: fluter_d on 2003-01-20 09:35 ]
Patsy Touhey recorded it. Tommy Reck used to have a great version of it, Paddy Fahey has re-arranged it as did [less succesfully] Ed Reavey. I heard Joe McLaughlin and his brother Dermot play it on occasion and the version recorded by Gerdy Commane is simply wonderful.
It’s out there.
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2003-01-20 09:37 ]
Aren’t there words that are sung to the melody? I was under the impression the words are racist or something, deroguatory in some way.