The Ballinalee

[RoddyRuddy]

Zuzana! I should kill you for not telling me about this site before!!!!!



Thanks though

viewtopic.php?p=78691&highlight=ballinalee#78691

Um...

[MissWalshy]

ah but yes! that was the month of my big party so I wasn't reading EVERY page like normal..

hehe!

Better late than never though.

Been listening to tracks all night.

AND IM LATE!

Have a great weekend guys

[dsweeney]

I think " The Balinalee " should definitely have been included on IISFFGWG, even at the expense of " Metropolis ". Personally, I thought there was enough experimenting already included, especially on side one, as was. The biggest tragedy though for me was that the divine " Shanne Bradley " missed out on an album placing and was relegated to the b- side of " Fairytale..." and oblivion. Hindsight has 20/20 vision of course but I think these two tracks are much more of what the Pogues were about and the timeless music Shane spoke of. They are so much more outside the mainstream of pop/ rock that they stand up better for it. At least " Shanne..." is on the remastered " Grace..." but the rollicking " Ballinalee " is with O'leary in the grave. A real shame.
A requiem for a song.

[philipchevron]

I think " The Balinalee " should definitely have been included on IISFFGWG, even at the expense of " Metropolis ". Personally, I thought there was enough experimenting already included, especially on side one, as was. The biggest tragedy though for me was that the divine " Shanne Bradley " missed out on an album placing and was relegated to the b- side of " Fairytale..." and oblivion. Hindsight has 20/20 vision of course but I think these two tracks are much more of what the Pogues were about and the timeless music Shane spoke of. They are so much more outside the mainstream of pop/ rock that they stand up better for it. At least " Shanne..." is on the remastered " Grace..." but the rollicking " Ballinalee " is with O'leary in the grave. A real shame.
A requiem for a song.

Um, well. I'm not sure if "The Ballinalee"'s inclusion on Just Look Them Straight In The Eye..... counts as being "in the grave", with or without O'Leary, but the plain fact is, though we recorded it on at least two separate occasions (at RAK and at Abbey Road), "The Ballinalee" never quite satisfied us enough to make it to the final cut of a Pogues album.

[dsweeney]

You're right of course, Phil, the box -set is most certainly not " in the grave", with or without O'leary, I stand corrected. But how many Pogues obsessives like me are out there who shelled out for it ? Know what I mean ? I simply meant it deserved a wider audience, that's all. At least you ressurected it from the vaults, for which, many thanks.
I bought a really dreadful bootleg cassette on O'connell bridge around '86 or more likely some time in '87, come to think of it, of a Pogues concert from somewhere or other. The crowd was nearly louder than the band over the guy's walkman or whatever he recorded it with. Anyway, it would have been in the run up to the release of " ...Grace.." and had things like " Lullaby...", " Turkish song..." and " The broad majestic...". The track I loved though was " The Ballinalee " and was absolutely gutted when it didn't make the cut for the album when it finally came out in early " 88. Still, it's great to at least have it in some incarnation and has pride of place on a 30 track " best of the box-set " I got somebody to burn me.
Incidentally Phil, I played the " Pogue Mahone " tracks on the box -set. The take of " Living in a world without her " is simply brilliant, with the violins. I'd have to narrowly plump for the album version with the accordian and uilleann pipes to the fore though. The demo of " Four o'clock in the morning " is better alright, I think, Jem's banjo more to the fore in the mix. " The sun and the moon " is a bit too basic for me, I love the pipes and whistle break on the album version. " Who said romance is dead " is great and should have gone on there.

[RoddyRuddy]

A year has passed, and The Ballinalee still haunts you?

If you are still interested in hearing the instrumental, open the following link and scroll down - you can find a live bootleg recording of it there.
Link

Sadly the above link seems to no longer exist.

[Zuzana]

Sadly the above link seems to no longer exist.

Links live, links die... And often they have a shorter life span than small rodents. The post with link which you refer to is over three years old. But luckily with the box set at hand, the bootleg version of the tune does not seem so crucial any longer.

[RoddyRuddy]

Sadly the above link seems to no longer exist.

Links live, links die... And often they have a shorter life span than small rodents. The post with link which you refer to is over three years old. But luckily with the box set at hand, the bootleg version of the tune does not seem so crucial any longer.

Still it is sad that this link has gone as it was a good one.