By Christina Abt
Buffalo, NY – Ah to be sure, Danny Boy was my dear departed mother's favorite Irish Song. While mom couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, each St. Patrick's Season she would celebrate by proudly belting out the soulful Danny Boy lyrics in her best off key fashion.
So too, I have carried on my mother's love of Irish music by enjoying it and singing it, not only in the high holy month of March but throughout the entire year. I'm not sure exactly what it is about the rhyme and rhythm of a classic Irish lilt, but no matter a ballad or a ditty, I find it always moves my heart and touches my soul.
My first true memory of Irish music relates to a record belonging to my mother entitled Shamrocks and Shillelaghs, recorded by the one and only Bing Crosby. The album cover was white in color and featured an assortment of leprechauns top to bottom. While I'm sure the vinyl disc was filled with a variety of excellent music, the song from that album that clearly remains in my memory was, Who Threw the Overhauls in Mrs. Murphy's Chowder? The imagery the words in that song created in my youthful mind always made me smile and the toe tapping rhythm always inspired me to jig.
Around the same time I was memorizing Mrs. Murphy's Chowder, my mother taught me a short ditty about life in an Irishman's Shanty. Once I'd mastered the verse, my mother explained that the song was to be sung in successive rounds, each one faster than the last. It wasn't until many years later as an adult that I realized the challenge of the song lay directly in the number of black and tans the singer consumed.
As I grew into womanhood and became a mother, Tour-A-Lour-A-Loura became a family tradition as I rocked my children to sleep while humming the delicate tune. Fevers, new teeth, nightmares, upset tummies, and a wide range of bumps and bruises were magically soothed away by the much-revered Irish Lullaby.
Irish music also played a significant role on my wedding day five years ago this June as musicians performed Celtic tunes from the ceremony to the reception. To this day I can still hear the chorus of Molly Malone's ...singing cockels and mussels alive, alive-oh lilting through the air of the grove where our family and friends gathered in celebration of my new husband and I.
Yet given all the Irish music that has influenced and shaped my life, there is still no song I find quite as inspiring as my mother's favorite Danny Boy. Whenever I hear those first readily identifiable notes begin to play, the music reminds me of a time in my life when my mother was alive and well and I was a carefree child listening her off-key delivery.
Mom, wherever you are, I hope that Danny Boy is playing every day and that you're still singing to beat the band.
"Heart and Soul" with Christina Abt is a monthly feature of WBFO News. .