Danny Boy: A Duet with My Father
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! It feels like the perfect time to share this with you. My interpretation of the classic Irish folk song, Danny Boy is now streaming on all platforms.
Listen to Danny Boy: Bandcamp | Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube
As many of you know, my father was a singer and church cantor — I remember cowering in the pews of St Brendan's in San Francisco and Santa Maria in Orinda, as my dad's booming baritone seemed to shake the rafters. And Danny Boy was his calling card.
Friends, family, and even acquaintances would often ask him to sing Danny Boy. And let's be honest, sometimes he'd just launch into the tune unprompted. And he owned this song. It was perfect for his rich baritone and his ability to connect on an emotional level with literally anyone he'd ever met.
I've always been reluctant to sing my father's song. How could any rendition hold a candle to his? For some reason, I could never remember the words anyway, even though I'd heard it thousands of times. It was as if I had a mental block from performing this song — much like Elvis had with Are You Lonesome Tonight.
I guess I wasn't alone: I couldn't even find anyone to sing it at his funeral in 2014. Some said they couldn't perform it the way he did, or that they couldn't get through the song without breaking down. I was able to muster singing the last lines of the 2nd verse as part of my eulogy. My aunt Maryanne later led us through the full song as he was lowered into the earth.
A few years ago, my uncle asked me to sing Danny Boy at his St Patrick's Day party. It wasn't his first request. This time I said yes, though. I was able to make it through (while glancing at the lyrics on my phone). Last year I began working out the song on guitar. I had the urge to take it in a rock oriented direction. The song has been stuck inside me my whole life — I might as well let it loose.
I then added bass, drums, lap steel... but I realized it wasn't quite finished after showing a friend my rough mix. "Maybe add some acapella," he said. It instantly dawned on me that I happened to have acapella of this song: my father's final performance.
My father and I both sang together in a men's chorus. During his final days, over 30 members of the chorus came to sing my dad a few songs in his home. And when the chorus was about to begin their second song, my father rose from his hospital bed and launched into a stirring rendition of Danny Boy from that I will never forget. What his voice lacked in timbre, he made up for in courage and tenderness. As one chorus member put it, "we came with the idea to give to him, but it was instead he who gave to us."
Fortunately, I had a recording of this performance and immediately downloaded it, hoping to create a duet with my father. But I assumed it wouldn’t match my already-recorded version—he had changed keys during his performance, and there was no way it would align. When I dropped the file into my Logic session, I was stunned. His opening line, 'Oh Danny Boy,' naturally climbed to the root note of my song’s key, making for a perfect intro. On a whim, I placed his final stanza at the end—and it landed seamlessly in the key I modulate to. This time, it was as if I were reaching up to him.
So here you have it. No one will ever be able to wrest Danny Boy from my father, but why would you want to? I hope he forgives me for turning his tender Irish ballad into a tender arena rock song. It's the kind of music he'd tell me to turn down when I was a teenager - I guess I'm still feeling rebellious.
Personnel
Vocals, Guitar - Jim Woods
Mixing, Mastering - Shai Fishman
Lap Steel - John Heinrich
Electric Bass - Robbie Malone
Drums - Jaimie Parks
This is the first song from a three-song EP called Songs for My Father. I’ll be sharing the rest with you soon.
