My Theme Song

For years, I hummed this little marching tune to myself. It always seems to give me energy and see me through tight spots. The Ninjas called it my "drive song". I'm not sure where it came from. I heard it in the movie "Always". Richard Dreyfuss hummed it whenever his fire tanker got into trouble. At Esalen, my online genius/Irish buddy Ken Garrety identified it as an Irish march called "Garry Owen". Oddly enough, it was the official march song of the infamous US 7th Cavalry (Custer et al). I've found simple wav versions online, but never the full original, which I am excited to attach.

Thomas Moore (1779-1882) wrote these lyrics to the tune Garry Owen

Let Bacchus' sons be not dismayed

But join with me, each jovial blade

Come, drink and sing and lend your aid

To help me with the chorus:

Chorus: Instead of spa, we'll drink brown ale

And pay the reckoning on the nail;

No man for debt shall go to jail

For Garryowen in glory.

We'll beat the bailiffs out of fun,

We'll make the mayor and sheriffs run

We are the boys no man dares dun

If he regards a whole skin.

Chorus

Our hearts so stout have got no fame

For soon 'tis known from whence we came

Where'er we go they fear the name

Of Garryowen in glory.

+++++++

In the United States it was adopted as a favorite marching air by General George Custer's 7th Cavalry, an association which helped to popularize the jig throughout country following Custer's demise. It had been said that the 7th acquired the song through Captain Miles Keogh, an Irishman and a former member of the Papal Guard. The melody was cited as having commonly been played at Orange County, New York country dances in the 1930's.