Writing about music close to one's heart can be be tricky. The challenge of trying to capture - through clumsy, clunky prose - its ethereal and deeply personal pleasures is a challenge this blog has rarely taken on.

It's far easier (not to mention more entertaining) to write on the subject of the musically mad, bad, demented and (even) disturbing. With that thought firmly in mind, another new fustar.info series begins (I'm getting addicted to starting these bloody things).¹ The aim (such as it is) of Songs for the Bewildered will be to celebrate, pick apart, and "unpack" popular songs that carry an almost indefinable, and possibly unintentional, air of oddness (I have, I hasten to add, no interest in the self-consciously "wacky").

For the first item on the menu we skip the savoury starters and go straight for the sickeningly sweet deserts. This mawkish dirge was suggested as suitable material for the blog by (adopts Daniel O'Donnell-esque drawl) "a special wee lady who's a big part of me life".

I give you, "Pal of my Cradle Days" - a perfect example of that evergreen musical form (beloved of Ireland's Own readers), the "Me & Me Mammy" balllad.

You know the score - she raised me; clothed me; bathed me; sat knitting in her rocking chair by the window waiting for me to come back from the war (while worrying about me buying a motorbike). That kind of thing.

Pal of my cradle days, I've needed you always.
Since I was a baby upon your knee,
You sacrificed everything for me.²

Here's the mighty Pip Collins giving it a go in Blackpool, circa 1980:

Pip tells it like it is and was. How does the ungrateful son repay the ceaseless maternal devotion? He stays out all night - most likely boozing and hooring - causing the loving mother to wither and shrivel up with the worry.³

Greatest friend, dearest pal,
It was me who caused you
Every sorrow and heartache you knew,
Your face so fair I have wrinkled with care
I placed every line that is there.

Though the audience remains unseen off-screen, it's not too difficult to guess at its composition: white-haired old dears dabbing tear-stained eyes while gazing at faded Polaroids of errant and estranged sons. And, perhaps, the odd errant and estranged son himself - sobbing quietly at the painful memory of that lost pal of his own cradle days (and the gold he cruelly whipped from her hair).

Lurking not too far behind all this maudlin sentimentality, however, there's an undeniable, skin-crawling creepiness. The most famous articulator of the sentiment, "A boy's best friend is his mother", was, after all, not Daniel O'Donnell…but Norman Bates. Having said that, I'm sure that themes of matricide and repressed Oedipal yearning aren't entirely absent from Daniel's live shows. That's probably part of the appeal.

Particularly if he includes (as I'm sure he must) that other "I REALLY love my mammy" classic, "A Mother's Love's a Blessing" in his set. Here be the chorus:

A mother's love is a blessing,
No matter where you roam.
Keep her while she's living,
You'll miss her when she's gone.
Love her as in childhood,
When feeble, old and grey,
For you'll never miss a mother's love
'til she's buried beneath the clay.

And here a lovely scratchy and warbly recording from de ould days:

In case you haven't guessed, the "special wee lady" who suggested I blog about the above was none other than my own darling mother. An extra pinch of icky weirdness has, I'm sure you'll agree, been added to the mix.

She's a sick twist all right.

1. To the point where I now find it hard to write a stand alone post. What's happening to me? [back]
2. Lyrics. [back]
3. Lovely golden hair turning, tragically, to silver. [back]