The latest potato blight to afflict the radio stations is a rave reworking of a traditional air - the question is, who will pay for 'Paddy's Revenge'?
PLUG IN YOUR diddley-iPod and get on your dancing brogues - the big hit of the season is here, and the whole world is getting jiggy with the techno trad beat. Paddy's Revengeis based on a song recorded 20 years ago by Irish traditional group Patrick Street, retooled for the rave generation by British DJ Steve Mac. It is almost certain to hit the top of the UK charts on its release next week.
The record features a sample of an instrumental tune called Music For a Found Harmonium; when you hear it, you'll wish the harmonium had remained lost.
The tune might be mainly melodeons, but it has already become a massive club hit, and has featured on the set-dance list of some of the UK's top DJs. It's even spawned its own dance, a cross between an aerobics class and Riverdance(as performed by Fr Noel Furlong in a caravan on Craggy Island), and dubbed the "rave jig". The dance has been been adopted by fans who have posted videos of themselves and their mates performing it on YouTube. The most popular one, in which a bunch of lads perform the dance in a kebab shop late one evening, has received more than 160,000 hits.
You can blame DJ Pete Tong and BBC presenter Vernon Kay for starting the "rave jig" - Tong played the record in front of 10,000 people at the BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend, and performed an impromptu jig with Kay, which the crowd immediately copied. Not since the interval act at the 1994 Eurovision, featuring Michael Flatley and Jean Butler, has anyone so deftly tapped into the traditional zeitgeist. It can't be long before it expands into a full-length show, with a whole troupe of dancers performing "rave jigs" around the world. Maybe we could get Ceilidh Minogue to star.
Steve Mac first heard the tune when it was used in an ad for furniture retailer MFI earlier this year. He started messing around with it on his laptop at home, and came up with something that sounds like The Chemical Brothers going on the lash with The Clancy Brothers. Mac, full name Steve McCutcheon, has produced dozens of hits for such pop acts as Westlife, Gareth Gates, Ronan Keating and Leona Lewis, but not even Westlife's worst can top the awfulness of Paddy's Revenge. If this is the Brits' revenge for foisting Riverdanceon them, then we've been well and truly paid back.
The original tune, however, ain't the worst, a niggly little thing with a skittering melody and a mildly hypnotic drone. It's been recorded by numerous Irish musicians in the past, including Sharon Shannon, but the Patrick Street recording is accepted as the definitive version. We can't take credit for the song's provenance, though. It was written by an Englishman - Simon Jeffes of the Penguin Café Orchestra. When Patrick Street performed their version of it, however, it was adopted by Irish fans and soon became an honorary Irish song. I would strongly urge the Irish Government to give it back.
THOSE OF A faintly nationalist hue who suspect the song may be poking fun at the Paddies won't be comforted by the video, which features actor Patrick Bergin dressed as a leprechaun guarding his crock of gold against a marauding horde of scantily dressed ladies. All I can say is, it's a good thing Top of the Popsis no more - we still haven't gotten over the national embarrassment of seeing Foster and Allen on the programme back in the 1970s, dressed in full Darby O'Gill regalia.
Paddy's Revengemay not be all that sweet, but it's positively dulcet in comparison to past attempts at tweaking traditional tunes. We didn't mind Horslips' Celtic prog too much, but when Dearg Doomwas turned into Ireland's Italia 1990 anthem, Put 'em Under Pressure, some purists considered emigrating. Brendan Shine spotted a golden opportunity to get down with the rave massive, and released a dance tune called Rinka. Unfortunately for the Mr Shine, he was a bit out of step with the trends and had to get off the dancefloor and go back to the oul' lobby. Still, God loves a trier - and Rinkawould try anyone's tolerance.
The most successful exponents of techno-diddley-aye are UK collective Dance To Tipperary, who have been churning out techno versions of popular Irish songs for nigh on 10 years, including Ride On, The Sally Gardensand - their biggest hit - The Fields of Athenry.
As Paddy's Revengeprepares to become this year's Macarena, it's time to quote the lyrics of a popular techno song of the past: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
