Molly Malone (again)

Happy Saint Patrick's Day everyone! It is ending in a few hours here. I explained the sad situation I am in this year in this post earlier today. But I can still celebrate Ireland through its music and share it with you. I know I upload Molly Malone almost every year, but this is the first Irish song I've ever heard and I love it dearly. Take it as a tradition on this blog. Saint Paddy's Day would not be the same without it anyway. The picture on your right was taken in Dublin in March 2000, sixteen years ago. It was a moving moment to meet Dublin's most famous lady... and most famous ghost.

Sweet Molly Malone

Happy Saint Patrick's Day everyone! I will start celebrating with you on this blog with a classic Irish song and the officious anthem of Dublin city. I know I uploaded Molly Malone a thousand times already. But it is a classic on this blog and I have a little anecdote to accompany the song. And anyway, there will be more music later, if I am sober enough. The picture above was taken by me fifteen years ago, in Dublin fair city itself. This is of course the statue of Molly Malone herself, on Grafton Street. It is a terrible picture, taken back in the days when we still used disposable cameras and not digital stuff. It was a very grey day in Dublin, my first day in the city. And walking around, there she was. Surrounded by people, as you could expect her to be, since she is a girl so pretty. And very... generous looking, let's put it this way. I did not even know there was a statue of her, but I recognized Molly Malone right away. She earned the less savoury nickname of "the tart with the cart", which could sound mean, but I think it is given affectionately. You can read more about my thought about the song here and here. But the best way to appreciate sweet Molly Malone is through the song that inspired her statue.

Molly Malone... en français?

C'est la Saint-Patrick aujourd'hui, alors je commence la journée avec... non pas une pinte, pas pour le moment, mais avec de la musique. Je tenais quand même à commencer cette journée avec un billet en français, j'ai donc trouvé cette interprétation de Molly Malone par... Renaud. Traduite. En général, j'exècre profondément les traductions de chansons, mais pas celle-ci. Renaud a une véritable affection pour la chanson originale et sa traduction libre reprend certaines légendes sur Molly Malone (sa mort de maladie vénérienne, notamment), ce qui rend l'interprétation intéressante.

Molly Malone on the balcony

I know it is not St-Patrick's Day yet, not even any time soon, but hey it's Friday so how about some Irish music? I love old classics revisited, this is one of them, from Balcony TV, which I discovered on YouTube. More on the program here. Anyway, this is Molly Malone, sung in an operatic way on a balcony on Dublin. I find brilliant the idea of singing on a balcony whatever comes to your fancy. And singing or listening the officious Dublin anthem in Dublin is always irresistible. It is the third time I upload the song on Vraie Fiction. There will be more.

Molly Malone (just because)

Yes, I uploaded the song before here. But that was two years ago, or so. And it is St-Patrick's Day soon, and it is March, and I want some Irish music on this blog. Molly Malone isnot the only Irish song I love to listen to, you can find many here if you check the labels, but it is maybe the only one I sing easily (as opposed to others). I mean I know the lyrics of Molly Malone and I can sing it maybe without the Irish accent, but with the right tone, the melancholic pathos. Singing such song is easy enough, singing it right is an entirely other matter. I am not singing it perfectly, far from it, but with a bit of practice I think I might: one has to put the soul in it, so to speak. Or maybe a pint or two of Guinness. But I should maybe avoid the temptation of being too operatic.

You can read more about what I think of Dublin's officious anthem here. A few more observations: Dublin's most famous girl next door must have stunk of fish and seafood. But when you love fish, cockles, mussels and the salty smell of the sea, it is not be stinky at all for you, and I think it may even have added to her charm. She had the Irish accent too, but I guess in a city of Irishmen, that was not exactly exotic. Anyway, I am not original, I am also a tad repetitive, so the reader might forgive me but I decided to upload again a version by the Dubliners. Like two years ago. I am not very original, but I find it difficult to find someone who sings it as good as they do.

Coïncidence musicale?

Je me le demande depuis mon billet d'hier: est-ce que les chansons À la pêche aux moules, que j'ai brièvement mentionnée ici, et I'll Tell Me Ma ne sont pas un peu liées. Les deux ont pour protagoniste une fille qui se fait harceler par des hommes sans comprendre pourquoi, les deux parlent de l'éveil à l'amour et de l'adolescence, les deux ont disons-le certains sous-entendus pas si sous-entendus, etc. Bon, peut-être que je vois trop de métaphores quand il n'y en a pas. Parlant de moules, il y en a aussi dans Molly Malone. Autre coïncidence?

Molly Malone

"In Dublin's fair city,
where the girls are so pretty,
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,
As she wheeled her wheel-barrow,
Through streets broad and narrow,
Crying, "Cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh!""

Care for some Irish music, as it is soon Saint Patrick's Day? I first got introduced to this classic song in A Clockwork Orange, when a drunken beggar sings it, which causes Alex to dismiss it in these unflattering terms:

"One thing I could never stand was to see a filthy, dirty old drunkie, howling away at the filthy songs of his fathers and going blurp blurp in between as it might be a filthy old orchestra in his stinking, rotten guts. I could never stand to see anyone like that, whatever his age might be, but more especially when he was real old like this one was."

I know Alex is supposed to be a hooligan and a musical elitist one at that, but that was still unfair. Molly Malone is not a filthy song. The beggar does not sing it in the original novel. I don't think Anthony Burgess, who had Irish blood and was in love with the country and its capital, could have come up with something like that. Anyway, the song stayed at the back of my head, as the small part in the musical framework of the movie, until I visited Dublin ten years ago and saw her statue on Grafton Street.

Like many things I love, I don't know exactly why I love it. It's a great drinking song, it has romantic self-irony, a bit of of supernatural element, atmosphere, it also has charming simplicity. I have been wanting to put it on this blog for a while. So here it is, sung by the Dubliners (and I know it takes too much space):