TOSCS wrote:I love this song, tho I've only ever heard versions from Blood or Whiskey, Ronnie Drew, and Dublin City Working Mans Band. But I can't make sense out of the sogn for love nor money (altho tbh I havn't offered anything for an explanation >_>)
The first couple of verses are clear enough, but then the chorus part:
Bang, bang shoots the buses
With his golden key
Is the person called bang bang, or is this jsut the sound of shooting? How does one shoot with a key?
Me father was a stater
And me mother loved a tan
A stater? Did mother love to sunbath, or did she love a soldier? Or a Guinness and cider?
Noel's up in Jacob's
And Mary's on the town
And I joined the transport union
When they said my nose was brown
Jacob's is a pub? What are the last 2 lines about??
If Mary's in the family way
She can blame the Cisco kid
Well I doubt this kid works for Cisco Systems, but I know a cisco is a type of fish so ... ?
I'll be langers in the morning
Me longers need a patch
WTF?
Now I have me primo
And me scapulars are blue
For helping the black babies
And Dolly Fossett too
I omitted the first few lines of this verse because I doubt there's any real explanation for them lol 'scapulars' is referrign to his shoulders right?
It's Brendan Behan out walking
Sure he's a ginger man
So he had ginger hair? I've only ever seen B&W pics and it looked brown..
It's true that Dublin's changing
Since the pillar was blown down
The pillar?
And finally...
A plenary indulgence
And another baby power
Baby power? What's this, an infant's civil rights movement?
Bang-Bang was a tramp who rode the backs of the old Routemaster buses, hopping on and off with his giant key (his firerarm of choice) and shouting "Bang! Bang!" at all the kiddies. I met him around 1972 in Jervis Street. My mother, who had not seen him since she was a child in the Liberties and believed him dead, embraced him warmly like a long lost friend.
Stater = Free Stater, supporter of the Free State
Tan = Black and Tan, gurriers in British uniform
Jacob's = a biscuit factory. It almost rivalled Guinness in giving employment to Dublin's working class.
Brown Noser = someone who has his snout too far up the bosses' arse.
Langers = Langered, ie Drunk. In recent years, the word has been appropriated for the Cork noun Langer, meaning, essentially, a ne'er do well
Longers = Long trousers, as opposed to short trousers. A rite of passage for Irish males even in my own time.
Scapulars were a sort of holy necklace incorporating relics from a variety of sources but, in any event, at least blessed by a prominent cleric. Shane has sometimes been photographed wearing a combination of scapulars and Tao symbols.
Black Babies = the Irish Catholic Missionaries in, typically, Africa, were, to a large extent, funded by the obligatory "penny for the black babies" tax levied on every schoolkid once a week.
The Ginger Man reference is to the JP Donleavy novel set in the debauched, dissolute and gnarled whiskey and porter world of literary Dublin in the 1950s. Word is that Mr Mac will play Behan in the upcoming movie of the novel.
In 1966, Nelson's Pillar near the GPO in O'Connell Street was blown up by republicans in an act of defiance. After prevaricating for 35 years or so, Dublin eventually replaced the symbol of Empire with a much more suitable gigantic steel cock.
A Baby Power is a discreet measure of Power's Whiskey, somewhat bigger than today's Mininbar Miniature, typically given to an invalid or smuggled home for the granny on a cold night. Or a warm night.
