I Ain’t Never Seen Nothin’ Like a Galway Girl

Galway As regular readers of Chimesfreedom know, I am a Steve Earle fan. So you might imagine my delight a few years ago while visiting a shop in Galway on my first trip to Ireland, on the radio I heard Steve Earle’s “Galway Girl” from Transcendental Blues (2000), one of my favorite CDs. In this day and age of worldwide communications and travel, it should not be surprising that an artist is popular around the world. And Earle often has talked about his love of the country and Galway, in particular, explaining that he finds “poetry in the rocks of Ireland.” Still, hearing the familiar song contributed to making the island inhabited by some of my ancestors seem even more like home.

In the performance above, Earle is joined by Sharon Shannon, a fiddle and button accordion player who recorded the song with Earle on her own CD, Diamond Mountain Sessions (2001). In the video above, she plays the accordion, and she plays with a number of artists in different versions including the below version with Mundy. Her recording with Mundy became a national hit, and you can see why this rousing version is so popular.

Mundy and others have performed the song in the Irish Gaelic language. I found one version without much description, so here are “Kevin Mundy and Keith” (neither apparently related to the Mundy from the above video) performing “Cailín na Gaillimhe.”

With Earle’s song becoming an Irish classic, it shows that a great song is not limited by borders. Have a safe and happy St. Patrick’s Day.

What is your favorite Irish tune? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    The Godfather Opened in March 1972

    The Godfather
    On the Ides of March (March 15) in 1972, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972) opened in theaters. Both Coppola, who was only 31 when he signed on to direct the film, and the book’s author Mario Puzo fought together to convince Paramount Pictures to cast Marlin Brando as Vito Corleone, despite the studio’s concerns about Brando’s notorious moody behavior.

    Orson Welles and Edgar G. Robinson, among others were considered for the lead role, and Burt Lancaster reportedly sought the role too. It is interesting but hard to imagine anyone besides Brando as the Godfather.

    Coppola and Puzo were right about the casting, of course, as Brando went on to win the Best Actor Academy Award, although he famously sent Sacheen Littlefeather to refuse the award on his behalf. The film also won Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Now, the movie is considered one of the greatest of all time, with a 100% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

    The film went on to spawn two sequels, but in recent years Coppola has argued that it should have ended with the first film. He stated that the first movie “wrapped up everything” and “[t]o make more than one Godfather was just greed.” Do you agree? Leave your two cents in the comments.

    Bonus Godfather Trivia
    : For the anniversary, Time Entertainment has “40 things You Didn’t Know About The Godfather.”

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    The “Other” Wrecking Ball: Emmylou Harris

    emmylou harris wrecking ball bruce springsteen wrecking ball In the last few weeks, many have focused on Bruce Springsteen’s new album, Wrecking Ball. All of the news reminds me that there was already a great album with same name from when Emmylou Harris released her Wrecking Ball in 1995. The Daniel Lanois production and the atmospheric sound of the album created a career-changing sound for Harris. Allmusic argued that the album might have been the culmination of all of Harris’s work up until then, calling it “a leftfield masterpiece, the most wide-ranging, innovative, and daring record in a career built on such notions.” I fell in love with the album immediately, and seeing Harris perform the songs in New Orleans sealed it for me. Just consider three great songs from that CD.

    First, the opening song on the album sets the stage for the Lanois production touch with one of his songs, “Where Will I Be.” The question asked in the song — “Oh where oh where will I be. . . when that trumpets sounds” — reflects a theme running through many songs on the album of trying to find one’s place in the world and the universe, whether it be with love, family, or something spiritual.

    Later on the album, Harris showed her great taste in music by covering one of Steve Earle’s most heartbreaking songs, “Goodbye” from his Train A Comin’ (1995) album. I love Earle’s version but Harris is the only cover I have heard that captures the aching in the song. On the album, Earle loaned his guitar playing to aid Harris’s voice in creating a great version of the song with one of the greatest lines of all time about a past love, “I can’t remember if we said goodbye.”

    Finally, the album also features her cover of Bob Dylan’s religious masterpiece, “Every Grain of Sand” from his Shot of Love (1981) album. In 2003, Harris performed the song at Johnny Cash’s funeral with Sheryl Crow. This video is from San Francisco’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in 2010. Even though the camera is a little shaky, it captures Harris in fine form with Buddy Miller helping out on guitar (on the CD, Steve Earle played guitar on this song too).

    And those are only three songs on Wrecking Ball, which in addition to Steve Earle, included guest appearances by Lucinda Williams and Neil Young with songs by those two artists as well as a beautiful cover of Gillian Welch’s “Orphan Girl.” I will not dare to say which Wrecking Ball album is the best, but there is certainly room on you iPod for both of these Wrecking Balls.

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    Jonah Hill “Doesn’t” Let Oscar Nom Go to His Head (SNL video)

    Jonah Hill SNL
    Last night, Jonah Hill hosted Saturday Night Live, lending his comedy chops to some of this season’s funnier segments. One of the funny bits was his send up of himself and Hollywood egos. Hill, who received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the excellent serious film, Moneyball (2011), lets a camera crew follow him on the SNL set to illustrate that the nomination has not gone to his head.

    The behind-the-scenes clip starts at the 1:45 mark, but you might also watch his monologue that introduces the clip starting from the beginning (well, except for a short commercial NBC makes you watch; if you are at work, turn down your speakers first). The video segment includes a funny exchange with Oscar-nominated screenwriter Kristen Wiig, and if you stay to the end, you will see two-time Oscar-winner Tom Hanks appear on the stage with his awards, “The Kick-Ass Twins.” [2014 Update: Unfortunately, the NBC video no longer works. FYI, If you are looking for Jonah Hill’s more recent appearance on SNL in January 2014, check out this link, which works as of today.]

    If your sense of humor prefers someone getting hit in the groin, the NBC website has a digital short from the show of Hill repeatedly getting hit by a tennis ball.

    What did you think of Jonah Hill’s performance on Saturday Night Live this week? Leave your two cents in the comments.


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    (Daylight Savings) Time Has Come Today

    melting clock Happy Daylight Savings Time! As you set your clocks an hour ahead, you might consider the history of the day as well as an appropriate song. On February 9, 1942, a law passed by Congress pushed ahead all U.S. clocks by one hour for the upcoming years. President Franklin Roosevelt advocated the year-round Daylight Savings Time, which was called “war time,” as a way to save fuel for the Allied war efforts. The law remained in effect until September 30, 1945 when Congress repealed it. A similar national law that turned back the clocks for seven months of the year had been in effect during World War I. But after both World War I and after World War II, the wars’ ends meant that states could once again regulate their own standard times.

    Eventually, in 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act imposing a uniform standard for states to follow Daylight Savings Time, although allowing state legislatures to vote for an exemption. In the 1970s and 1980s Congress made additional changes to the law, including setting the time and date for when Daylight Savings Time begins. A 2005 law extended the Daylight Savings Time ending date from October to November, so now Daylight Savings Time begins at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday of March and ends at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of November.

    An appropriate song for Daylight Savings Time is the 1967 release “Time Has Come Today” by the Chambers Brothers.

    The song has been covered by a number of people, including Joan Jett, the Ramones, and Steve Earle (with Sheryl Crow). The song seems to be loved by some great film directors. Hal Ashby used it in a key scene in Coming Home (1978); Brian De Palma used it in Casualties of War (1989); Oliver Stone used it in The Doors (1991); and Spike Lee used it in Crooklyn (1991). The song appears in several other films too, including Remember the Titans (2000), The Zodiac (2006) and many others according to Wikipedia.

    In 2012, though, the use of the song was back in the news. Lester Chambers, the lead singer of the Chambers Brothers reached out to fans because he and the band often did not receive royalties for the use of their songs. Chambers explained that he is living on $1,200 a month and relying upon money from a musician’s charity when all he wants is what is rightly his. The campaign has attracted the support of Yoko Ono and others.

    The law can change the clock, but can it turn back time to give justice to Lester Chambers? March 2013 Update: Through help from Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, Reddit, Kickstarter and attention through various media outlets, Lester Chambers — who had faced homelessness and health issues — began doing better and once again making music. He survived when someone attacked him during a performance in 2013 after he dedicated a song to Trayvon Martin. In 2014, Chambers was playing with Lester Chambers and the Mud Stompers. As of 2023, he continues to perform and was performing with Moonalice.

    What do you think if Daylight Savings Time? What do you think of Lester Chambers’s campaign? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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