I’m looking for a CD of someone singing Percy French songs. Not hard you might think. Surely, it should be easy to find someone singing the work of the man who wrote such classics as the following:
You may talk of Columbus’s sailing
Across the Atlantical Sea
But he never tried to go railing
From Ennis as far as Kilkee
You run for the train in the morning,
The excursion train starting at eight
You’re there when the clock gives the warnin’
And there for an hour you’ll wait
And as you’re waiting in the train,
You’ll hear the guard sing this refrain-
Are ye right there, Michael, are ye right?
Do you think that we’ll be there before the night?
Ye’ve been so long in startin’,
That ye couldn’t say for startin’
Still ye might now, Michael,
So ye might!
They find out where the engine’s been hiding,
And it drags you to Sweet Corofin;
Says the guard, Back her down on the siding
There’s the goods from Kilrush comin’ in.
Perhaps it comes in two hours,
Perhaps it breaks down on the way;
If it does, says the guard, be the powers,
We’re here for the rest of the day!
Spoken:
And while you sit and curse your luck
The train backs down into a truck.
Are ye right there, Michael, are ye right?
Have ye got the parcel there for Mrs. White?
Ye haven’t, oh begorra,
Say it’s comin’ down tomorra –
And well it might now, Michael,
So it might.
At Lahinch the sea shines like a jewel,
With joy you are ready to shout,
When the stoker cries out, There’s no fuel,
And the fire’s taytotally out.
But hand up that bit of log there –
I’ll soon have ye out of the fix;
There’s fine clamp of turf in the bog there.
And the rest go a-gatherin’ sticks.
Spoken:
And while you’re breakin’ bits of tree,
You hear some wise remarks like these –
Are ye right there, Michael? Are ye right?
Do ye think that you can get the fire to light?
Oh an hour you’ll require,
For the turf it might be drier –
Well it might now, Michael,
So it might.
Well, devil a bit as my mother would say. The ignorant young people in the record shops in Dublin asked whether he was a solo artist or in a band. When I explained that he was a long dead lyricist (but very famous, truly), they looked at me blankly. I had discovered from my internet searches that he was also an inspector of drains but I didn’t go into this. I even went into the Irish music shop on Nassau street and the girl there had never heard of him but she summoned a more experienced man from the back of the shop. He was familiar with the great man’s works (we are not talking obscure here, everyone in Ireland must know the tunes, even the people who had never heard of him) but said that I would find it impossible to get them on CD. He was right. Even Amazon have failed me. OK a couple of websites do seem to offer PF CDs but only in exchange for your firstborn child and all your bank details. I hesitate.