Irish music, or to be more precise, Irish songs, are a form of musical expression that have been a part of my life for pert near a quarter century. I felt it necessary to express that my allegiance to Irish music is with songs, rather than with tunes, as many lump and bind the two into the same sack of wilted shamrocks and limp leprechauns.

“Tunes”, that which generally fall into the category of “Traditional Irish Music” are the jigs and reels sawed out of fiddles, squeezed out of accordions, plucked out of guitars, and beat out of bodhrans. Foot stomping, hand clapping, table tapping, pint swinging music.

No words, no story, just endless loops of 4/4 or 6/8 time until your feet and hands are swollen, your tables tapped out, and your pint is happily swigged or hopelessly spilt. My wife and my daughter like tunes, my son and I are staunch supporters of songs. To our gentlemanly, yet slightly Neanderthal ears, the tunes all sound the same, and they all last much too long. Like a political speech or a mattress commercial. So it goes.

I apologize. It was cruel and meanspirited of me to compare Irish tunes and purveyors of mattresses to politicians. I don’t “hate” tunes, I just vastly prefer songs. I am tremendously impressed with the dedication and skill that is necessary to play these time-honored tunes, but I can’t keep my gentlemanly, yet slightly Neanderthal mind from thinking, “For the love of leprechauns! When are they going to sing?”

My good friend Paul and I have been singing Irish songs at the Rapid City Library in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day for the past three-years. To ensure that they keep inviting us back, we don’t charge for our performance. “Performance” sounds a bit grand for what Paul and I do. Perhaps, “Facilitators of Frivolity” would be a more accurate description?

Whatever you want to call it, we enjoy ourselves, enjoy sharing these songs, and most of all, enjoy getting people to sing along and maybe go home with the lyrics of “Whiskey Is the Life of Man” or “The Black Velvet Band” stuck in their head. There are less useful things to have stuck in your head…like algebra.

This year, Paul and I had a two-state tour for St. Patrick’s Day. We facilitated frivolity on Friday March 15th, in Chadron, Nebraska, at a nursing home, and then loaded up our tour bus (Toyota) and headed back to Rapid City for our library gig on Saturday March 16th.

The nursing home gig was also enjoyable, and as it is any time I “perform” in a nursing home, very enlightening. I like bringing Paul with to nursing homes, like my mother, he’s good at visiting with anyone about most anything. Paul doing what he’s good at, frees me up to do what I’m good at…observing and pondering. I’m not certain those things constitute really “doing” anything, as they look suspiciously like doing nothing? Can one be good at something that isn’t really doing anything?

As we were setting up for our “performance” a lovely little old lady, with her “hair” cocked a bit like a jaunty hat, said to Paul, “When did you die?” This question caught my attention by the lapels and turned my head as Paul hesitantly replied, “Well…I haven’t yet.” A statement, that seemed to linger on the cusp of a question, as if she might know something that we did not.

She smiled and persisted, “I know, but when did you die?” Paul, rightfully so, seemed to be at a rare loss for words, so I unhelpfully commented, “It’s on the calendar. We’re just not sure of the exact date?” Making unhelpful comments can be added to the list of what I’m good at when Paul and I interact with our adoring fans.

She seemed adequately confused by my unhelpful comment, smiled, and shuffled off to lounge on a couch under a window, while a well-fed tabby cat lay on the back cushions gazing out the window, lazily flittering its tail just above her jaunty hair. Jaunty hair, which now seemed to be positioned so as to shade her eyes from the afternoon sun, and shade her ears from Paul and I.

“When did you die?” Good question.