The Murdering of the Sing Song??  

By Nod

Nikki Minaj, Rhianna, One Direction, Tiny Tempa, Little Mix, David Guetta and other Music artists of the day is all I hear on the radio at the moment. These artists / acts take up 80% of the airplay time on the mainstream radio stations.

Here I am not trying to make a point by talking about how Simon Cowell has murdered the music industry by dominating the charts with million dollar marketing teams and over exposure of similar acts or how the U2’s, Oasis’s, Green Days, Billy Joel’s, Dean Martins or Tina Turners of the past are better than the current stars of the music world. I am more asking a question?

Everyone will have seen this picture before, If not imagine this. Sitting in a real local pub on a Saturday night with a one man band in the corner.

One man who’s only instruments are his great voice, his Fender Stratocaster guitar and a drum machine banging out a lot of old sing song classics like The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Drifters,  The Pogues, Roy Orbison, Garth Brooks, Frank Sinatra and The Waterboys to name a few.

After a few hours of playing all good resident acts will call up local singers because it is something of tradition and a dying tradition at that in Irish locals, due to publican’s or function rooms not allowing it.

Revellers of all ages would belt out all classic tunes everything from Traditional, 50’s ,60’s ,70’s ,80’s, 90’s and even some songs from the last decade but very little(Adele, some Take That (aka Barry Manilow) that got everyone involved. 

There where people dancing and singing would you believe not afraid to make a show of themselves! Great night was had by me

Back to the point about the music. A very large percentage of these songs I actually knew the words  from attending family’s party are where a good aul Irish sing song was had at the end. (If you don’t sing you better be a fast runner) or in my brothers case a good one line start merchant.

The empty bottle (acting as a microphone) would pass around from person to person and table to table with everyone joining in but very few skipping their turn to sing.

What I am trying to say is in the future will this dying tradition be extinct? Will people be singing Pound the Alarm or S&M and all that stuff because if that’s the case I hope to god I get to see a dodo soon enough…   Somehow I don’t think I will.