Every great royal visit needs a great song to commemorate it. And that honour, it seems, has been bagged by the Cork balladeer Tim O'Riordan and his song Come up to Gurrane, Lizzie Windsor. It now has more than 40,000 hits on YouTube and O'Riordan, who fronts the band Natural Gas, says the reaction to the song has been amazing. He was interviewed about it during the week by the BBC World Service.
"I wrote it in April when I heard the queen was coming over and based it on the old Scottish ballad, Will ye Gang tae the Hielands, Lizzie Lindsay," he said.
O'Riordan last had a hit on his hands in 2004, when his song The Langer,dedicated to Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy, was one of the biggest-selling singles of the year in Ireland.
Was he hoping he might get a chance to perform his lighthearted tribute in front of the woman herself? "Cork was the City of Culture the year after we did The Langerand we couldn't get a gig off them, not even on a street corner, so we weren't holding out much hope of performing for the queen."
The slideshow with the Lizzie Windsorsong on YouTube is highly entertaining, particularly the image of her majesty, in market trader's coat and headscarf, holding a tray of drisheen and another one of her going for a spin on a sulky. Here's a flavour of the song:
So, come up to Gurrane, Lizzie Windsor,
Come up to sweet Farranree,
Won’t ya come up to Gurrane, Lizzie Windsor
And look down on the banks of the Lee.
That’s Patrick Street there in the distance,
Some chaps burned it down long ago,
But we built it back up from the rubble
’Cos we’ve fierce pride in Cork, don’t ya know.
Ah, you’ll love the auld English Market,
We’ve trotters and tripe and drisheen,
Pig’s head and juicy black puddings
And things only fit for a queen.
We does rugby and soccer and cricket,
And we’re not all that bad, as you know.
Yera chance an auld pint a Tanora
And come up the Mardyke for a stroll.
’Twas mighty ya came for a visit,
The next time don’t leave it so long,
But come back to our beautiful city
’Cos it’s time that we all got along.
You can hear O’Riordan sing it at the Ashburton pub in Dillon’s Cross in Cork tonight and in Killarney most Monday and Thursday nights, as he has a residency at Eviston House Hotel in the town.
