Dear Tommy Makem: Your voice basically WAS my childhood. I still listen to those old Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem albums, and it’s always the oddest feeling, a mixture of present/past. Am I a child? Are these records playing on a battered turntable as I dribble a popsicle down my T-shirt? Or is it now? These songs are woven into my life, they’re just a part of who I am. I will leave it to others to talk about how the Clancy Brothers influenced an entire generation of singer/song-writers (Dylan is eloquent on this) … For now, I mourn the loss. A fragile thread of connection to my childhood, the continuum.
I was a bit afraid of Tommy Makem when I was a child. Because he was NOT a Clancy and I just didn’t really understand that. I don’t know why I found it baffling, but I did. “What’s HE doing there?” was my basic reaction. I also found his face slightly frightening. The Clancy brothers look like O’Malleys. They all could be my uncles. But Makem had something different to his look, and I guess it freaked me out. I remember my father saying to me, and I had to have been 6 or 7 – I must have announced, “I don’t like Tommy Makem!” – and I remember my dad saying, “Ahh, but he’s the real singer.”
In time, I have come to know the truth of that statement.
Funny what you remember.
Rest in peace, Mr. Makem.
I wonder if you have any idea what you have truly meant to people. I hope so.
I’ll play some Clancy Brothers and Makem tonight, in memoriam. I can’t raise a glass because I’m not drinking … but I will raise one in my head and my heart.
Thank you.
Here’s a link to the Intl Herald Tribune obituary of this amazing artist.
Major nostalgia below:
Dan and I had identical childhoods. Beautifully said, Dan.
I see we posted similar thoughts today. RIP Mr. Makem and thanks for the music. Another piece of childhood gone.
Just read your post. Beautiful.
Nice column in the Globe:
http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles/2007/08/02/tommy_makems_soul_music/
Okay, that made me cry. It made me need to hear him do Four Green Fields again.
The beauty of the iPod. Listening to 4 Green Fields right now.
I listened to Carnegie Hall this morning via iPod.
Her hair was black and her eyes were blue,
the colonel and the major and the captain sought her
The sergeant and the private and the drummer-boy too,
but they never had a chance with Reilly’s daughter
Giddy aye ae, giddy aye ae, giddy aye ae for the one-eyed Reilly
Giddy aye ae, (clap, clap, clap) try it on your old big drum
I think it’s the whole audience at Carnegie Hall doing the “clap clap clap” that really gets me about that song.
It’s just a perfect album. I love the soft “God bless” at the very end – said by one of them, not sure who – after they sing Parting Glass.
Maybe someday I’ll go back again to Ireland
And my dear old wife would only pass away
She nearly has my heart broke with her nagging
She’s got a mouth as big as galway bay
I can’t stop! I love this one, too, because it’s a sing-along – so you can hear the whole of Carnegie hall singing.
And we, as kids, always thought it was aMAZING that the Clancy Brothers would do a song where they repeatedly mentioned my sister’s middle name! (Of course, to us, there was only one Grania in the world.)
Ãró, sé do bheatha ‘bhaile! Ãró, sé do bheatha ‘bhaile!
Ãró, sé do bheatha ‘bhaile! Anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.
A bhuà le Rà na bhfeart go bhfeiceam
Muna mbeam beo ‘na dhiaidh ach seachtain
Gráinne Mhaol agus mÃle gaiscÃoch.
Ag fógairt fáin ar Ghallaibh
etc.
Oh, and as a child, to sing along with this song – it was like you just had to make up your own words. Or just sing in phonetic gibberish. We knew it by heart – just had no idea what we were saying.
“Ãró, sé do bheatha ‘bhaile!”
Uhm, come again?
Yes – phonetic gibberish!
Some say the devil’s dead,
Some say he’s far away.
Some day the devil’s dead,
and buried in Killarney.
More say he rose again!
More say he rose again!
More say he rose again,
and joined the British Army.
ha!! Yes! I love the children’s medley.
Ahem! Ahem!
Me mother has gone to church!
She told me not to play with you because you’re in the dirt
It isn’t because you’re dirty
it isn’t because you’re clean
It’s because you have the whooping cough and eat margarine!
It eases my grief to read these posts and know that there are so many others who will miss this remarkable singer. He’s been a part of my musical life for 40-odd years. I hope he know the joy he brought to so many.
Aw, so sad. My parents are going to be so bummed. I too grew up listening to Tommy Makem. I always remember his name being mentioned on the Thistle and the Shamrock radio show on Fordham University’s station.
I used to sing along to “Four Green Fields” with a very exaggerrated Irish accent. My mother often said, “Ach you’re ruining my good song.”
I gave the similar treatment to “Black Velvet Band,” “A Nation Once Again,” “The Fields of Athenry” and I positively butchered “One Day at a Time, Sweet Jesus.”
I was a punk.
i love your parents, curly. :)
We were about as Irish as aqavit and herring, but my dad had a copy of some Clancys/Makem album when I was a kid, and played it all the time.
One of the big sounds of my childhood, too.
But Curly, you must sing it, “a NATION once again…a NATION once again ” while screaming the word nation. That is what we did as kids- it made us laugh so hard when we did it!!
And Sheila- when I was little, I thought that the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem WERE related to me. We listened to them so much, that I just thought they were uncles or something.
True confession: I think ‘Four Green Fields’ is a terrible song. Just awful. Sorry everybody.
On the other hand I am compelled – helplessly so – to sing along whenever I hear ‘Fields of Athenry’ – despite the fact I passed 1000 hearings of it somewhere around age 11.
“sorry, everybody” hahahaha
No! You must love that song! Tis a requirement!!
and hahahahaha with Fields of Athenry. That and Raglan Road.
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem provided the soundtrack of my childhood as well. Listening to them gives me a sense of joy and hope and comfort and … I don’t know … deep satisfaction, maybe? Something I can’t quite articulate, but that I only get from those songs and those voices.
I saw Tommy Makem perform about 10 years ago at the Itoo Hall in Peoria, Illinois. A little teeny tiny place where they hold wedding receptions and stuff. About as far from Carnegie Hall as one could be. But there he was, playing and singing his heart out. He was awesome, and I was like, a foot away from him, and as far as I was concerned it might as well have been John Lennon. My heart was RACING. Tommy Makem, RIGHT THERE!!! Hahahaha – he autographed my CD after and was very nice about all my gushing.
I didn’t know he’d passed until reading your post. Today will be all Clancy/Makem, all the time on the stereo, in tribute.
What a voice. One for the ages. RIP.
And Sheila, hahahaha, I too used to worry about his outsider status! Did the Clancys really like him? Were they sometimes mean to him? Did he ever feel bad that he wasn’t one of the brothers? These concerned thoughts would run through my six or seven or whatever-year-old mind as I gazed at those album covers. Like, is all this happiness a lie?
Sheila – hahahahahahahaha It’s so funny the things little kids think sometimes, isn’t it??
You have all said so well what is in your hearts. Tom Clancy has passed, Paddy Clancy has passed and now Tommy Makem. He was no outsider, Liam said he loved him like one of his own brothers. I too grew up listening and was proud to be Irish, but getting past that they and he were a talented bunch of men , who’s likes we will not see again. “So fill to me the parting glass, goodnight and joy be with you all”
“God Bless”
Redrowan
Sheila
Isn’t it grand?
Thank you – knew I could count on you. And you were not alone in the child’s “Makem is the odd man out on the album cover” perception.
And my favorite…
Look at the coffin
With golden handles
Isn’t it grand, boys?
To be bloody well dead?
Let’s not have a sniffle,
Let’s have a bloody good cry.
And always remember the longer you live,
the sooner you bloody well die.