The Rare Old Mountain Dew

"The Rare Old Mountain Dew" is an Irish folk song dating from 1882.

History

It was written by Edward Harrigan with music by Dave Braham, from the Irish drama The Blackbird. It was printed in "Irish street Ballads", 1916. It was later recorded under the title The Rare Old Mountain Dew. It is about the intoxicating properties of Irish moonshine, or Poitín. The earliest recording is by John Griffin, 1927 on the Columbia label, New York, under its original title.

It is sung to the traditional air The Girl I Left Behind (also known as Brighton Camp).

The song is referenced in The Pogues song "Fairytale of New York":

And then he sang a song
The Rare Auld Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you.

Recordings

• "The Joys and Curse of Drink of dean" (various artists) 1998
• Four to the Bar on their live album Craic on the Road.
• Sam Hinton on "the Wandering Folksong".
• Orthodox Celts on their album Green Roses.
• The Pogues with Ronnie Drew from The Dubliners, singing together with Shane McGowan.
• The Dubliners.
• The Clancy Brothers performed it on several albums, in some versions also together with The Dubliners.
• Carolina Chocolate Drops bluegrass version performed on album "Heritage".

Lyrics

Let grasses grow and waters flow

In a free and easy way

But give me enough of the rare old stuff

That's made near Galway Bay

Come gougers all from Donegal,

Sligo and Leitrim too

We'll give them the slip and we'll take a sip

Of the real old mountain dew.

There's a neat little still at the foot of the hill

Where the smoke curls up to the sky

By a whiff of the smell you can plainly tell

That there's poteen boys close by.

For it fills the air with a perfume rare

And betwixt both me and you

As home we roll, we can drink a bowl

Or a bucketful of mountain dew.

Now learned men as use the pen

Have writ' the praises high

Of the sweet poteen from Ireland green

That's made from wheat and rye

Away with your pills, it'll cure all ills

Be ye pagan, Christian, or Jew

So take off your coat and grease your throat

With a bucket of the mountain dew.

Vocables are often sung with the song, either after every second verse or once at the beginning and once at the end, to the same tune as the lyrics. While these vocables vary with the singer, one typical version is "hi dee diddley idle dum, hi dee doodle dydle dum, hi dee doo dye diddly aye day", repeated once.

External links

• Lyrics