Well, here we are again. St. Patrick’s Day in the US. Scottish pipe bands doing a land office business because most folks are too ignorant to know the difference. The melifluous tones of John McCormick, Bing Crosby and Dennis Day echoing out decades after their deaths.
Tear-jerking “Irish” songs that never saw Ireland. One of the most popular was written by a German schoolteacher in the US Midwest. Others were first sung on Broadway.
And, sigh, I love it! Sure, not every day or even for more than three days a year, but in its annual brief resurgence I find myself actually looking for radio stations playing these songs. Kind of like the sweet guilt of a forbidden sweet or a deliciously salacious thought.
As anyone else so afflicted? Are there some of those songs you play or hum or sing when you think that no one else is listening? Do you smile to the strains of “Mother Machree” or “Danny Boy”?
It’s OK, I won’t tell. We can all go back to being supercilious come Sunday.
