It is not, never was nor will ever be a great song. What other songs weren't suitable are irrelevant. Phil Coulter's (dubious) credentials are irrelevant. It's a cringe-inducing, dumbed-down, glorified nursery rhyme. The poor Garda band have arranged it to death, made it more uptempo, added the drum tattoo to fill it out and help the plodding metre of it.... and it's still a sh!t song.Dave Cahill wrote:fourthirtythree wrote:
And can I just reiterate that it's an utterly shite dirge of a song? Phil Coulter's isn't as bad. It's f%~king awful. You've all just got accustomed to it's utter shiteness.
It was the best solution to a big problem. I remember when it was commissioned, I was working for a Music Publisher at the time (Paddy 'Fields of Athenry' Reilly's publisher at the time funnily enough) and we (we had some pretty significant songwriters on our books) along with a number of our peers were approached . The Union had been having the conversation internally since RWC87 and the 'Danny Boy' fiasco. They first went looking for an existing song, but the ones that were from 'politically unobjectionable' artists weren't suitable (e,g Song for Ireland), or were too expensive (e.g. U2), or were tied up in legal issues (e.g. Horslips). It was then decided to commission a song. It had to be anthemic, the writer had to be willing to sign over the rights in perpetuity, it couldn't be political of course or be a drinking song, there was a long list of requirements. They wanted a songwriter with an international reputation to give it gravitas. Phil Coulter fitted the bill (you should take a look at his songwriting credits, if they started and stopped at "scorn not his simplicity" they'd be amazing, but he also wrote (or co-wrote) Puppet on a String, Congratulations, The Town I Loved So Well, and a ridiculous amount of hits in the 70s for various glam rock acts), he wanted to do it, was willing to write to the requirements and presented a bloody good song. I think it needs re-arranging - theres too much dead air in it, but its still a great song.
For all the complaining, no one has ever suggested or come up with anything else thats even close to being suitable.
By contrast, the Garda band (as they have taken to doing in recent years, which really annoys me) rearranged our visitor's anthem to try to dampen the opposition crowd. They turned Flower of Scotland into a girly waltz. It was still a far better anthem than Coulter's Drawl.
