In His Bones and Blood

Although my last name has a distinctly "Germanic" flavor, the German influence in my blood-line was always discounted in my family.  The German guy was a one-off, he fled the family, leaving his wife to raise two young boys on her own.  Lots of pain, humiliation and guilt tied up in that little act of cowardice.  He may have had his reasons, but no one knew what they were, or at least the people who might have had an inkling, weren't talking. And that act turned out to be a life-long betrayal with reverberations for a couple generations of the clan.

So it was left to the Irish side of the family to pick up the pieces, to pull together, and to try to make it in the world, to raise a family, to get up and face the day, and to carry on. So it's the Irish side of the blood-line that was always revered and celebrated.  I always thought of myself as Irish.  And that Irish-ness meant a little craziness mixed in with a resilient toughness, and the ability to laugh and to carry on.  

And I can pass as Irish. I see it in the mirror every morning. Although to be fair to my mother's side of the family there is a healthy dose of Polish in my genetic make-up and there was always talk of a dollop of French blood in the line too.  And god knows what else?  Truly I am a white-bread 3rd generation mongrel of the first degree.

Still, when we made the trip to Dublin it felt like a real homecoming. I easily tear up when I hear Danny Boy.  I'm a big fan of Van Morrison, U2, the Pogues and Sinead O'Connor, and Samuel Beckett and James Joyce and blah, blah, blah.  Erin Go Braugh!

And the list of famous Irish people is quite impressive, you can review the list yourself.  Anyway, listening to Shane McGowan this morning stirs the blood for sure.  Anyone for a Guinness this early in the AM?  This is a great Christmas song.  We're thinking of trying it with our band for our next show. 

Shane is one of those great, sodden, tragic, Irish poets.  He always sounds half-crocked, or no, maybe fully crocked... and maybe he always really is, but he's a great songwriter, and he sings with a gravity, authority, and raging, ragged beauty that seems grounded in his bones and blood...