What is the U.S. Electoral College? And what does it have to do with The Kesh Jig and The Humours of Glendart? This election adjacent exploration of two popular jigs takes a look at the stories behind jig (and Presidential) contenders, and the process used to choose a winner.
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Thank you to everybody for listening. And a special thank you to this month’s underwriters: John Sullivan, Heather Carroll, Michael Craine, Adele Megann, Karin Kettinring, Paul Davis, Edward O’Dwyer, the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast, John Sigler, Randall Seamen, Ron Kral, Isaiah Hall, David Vaughan, Susan Walsh, Matt Jensen, John Ploch, Tom Frederick, Paul DeCamp, Jonathan Duvick, Gerry Corr, Mike Voss, Sean Carroll, Isobel McMahon, Bob Suchor, Rick Rubin, Ken Doyle, Chris Armstrong, Ian Bittle, and Chris Murphy
Episode 79-Kesh v Glendart
Campaigning for Jigs and Tallying Results
This Irish Music Stories episode aired October 28, 2024
https://www.shannonheatonmusic.com/episode-79-Kesh-v-Glendart
* * * * * * *
Speakers, in order of appearance
>> Shannon Heaton: flute player, singer, composer, teacher, and host of Irish Music Stories
>> Nigel Heaton: Young announcer for Irish Music Stories
* * * * * * *
I’m Shannon Heaton, and this is Irish Music Stories. The show about traditional music, and the bigger stories behind it….
Like how nights of music are usually sweetest when there’s consensus
[ Music: “My Love is in America, Alternate Routes” from dearga
Artists: Matt & Shannon Heaton ]
Finding compromise —and getting everybody clued in in the first place— is easier to pull off with eight people than it is with 345 million. But steering a music session (or a country) usually involves gathering input and then choosing a path.
There might be a little challenge or mess on the road to resolution. But the basic process is hearing and sorting different ideas. It’s about sharing information, digesting it, and making a decision.
It’s about casting votes, and counting them.
Like, what’s the most popular double jig melody of all time? Now, there’s no one central governing Irish music body. But let’s say Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann decided to run a contest to name the most popular jig.
[ Music: “Grupai Ceol Theme,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Artist/Composer: Matt Heaton ]
Comhaltas is a huge, well-known organization for Irish musicians. Since 1951, Comhaltas (which means group in Irish) has been dedicated to promoting traditional music and language. There are hundreds of local branches across five continents at this point. If Comhaltas in Dublin asked all the Comhaltas teachers around the world to submit ideas of the most common jigs—and had interns and bots poring over all the printed and online catalogs and collections to see what jigs emerged as top tunes—maybe they could narrow it down to 10 or 20 contenders. Comhaltas could get the word out at all the classes, summer schools, and festivals. And we could have one big worldwide vote on the most popular jig of all time.
Til then, maybe I can just look in the very first Comhaltas tune book and see which jig appears first. I’m looking at Book one. And the first jig is… the Humours of Glendart.
[ Music: “Humours of Glendart,” from Foinn Seisiun, Volume 1
Artists: Various ]
Nice tune. Good pedagogy. A really good choice for a book appealing to lots of different instruments—there’s repetition, the tune doesn’t go too high. And it’s in the very friendly key of D Major.
Now Comhaltas isn’t suggesting that this is the most popular jig. It’s just the first one in the book. So if I’m after the most popular jig, I might need to head to other resources that keep tallies.
[ Music: “D Chimes,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Artist/Composer: Matt Heaton ]
According to Alan Ng’s irishtune.info site—which catalogs different commercial recordings of tunes, and how many times each tune has been collected on the site, The Kesh Jig is the overall winner. 622 site members include the tune in their collections, and 19 featured recordings on the site. Humours of Glendart isn’t even in the top ten.
[ Music: “D Mutey Big Build,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Artist/Composer: Matt Heaton ]
On Jeremy Keith’s TheSession.org, The Kesh Jig is also #1. It’s in 6,586 members’ tune books. And Jeremy shows 131 commercial recordings of The Kesh Jig. Humours of Glendart is way down there, with 5350 fewer votes..
Well this is a living tradition. And as I said there is no central governing body. There’s a LOT of variety from town to town, and from year to year. And there are variables: like, the most well-known jig might not be the most popular one to play at all sessions. Or the tunes your teacher started you on might not necessarily be go-tos in your neighborhood. Or the most often played this week might not be the most well-known, the most cited, the most collected, the most recorded.
But if there were that one big vote to name the most popular jig of all time—if, say, Comhaltas had a big contest—the winner would be the jig with the most votes, right?
And when you have 78 episodes of a podcast, the most popular episode would be the one that was most downloaded. I understand that there’s a lot that can be learned from analyzing and interpreting data in different ways, which I do not do. Like, the number of Irish Music Stories listens that inspired future IMS listens, or CD sales… All those stats might be illuminating and important in different ways. But when I look at my podcast dashboard, I can clearly see which has emerged as the most popular one. It’s Episode 42-The Long Arm of the Irish Tradition. That’s the most downloaded listen. Which makes sense. Because that’s the story of how Irish music has spread to many countries outside of Ireland.
[ excerpt from Episode 42 ]
So you get the idea. I wove together conversations with musicians from Germany, Spain, China, Argentina, Finland, Brazil, Japan, Korea, the Philippines, and New Zealand. It’s a big group. So it makes sense that the story would land with a big group. Yeah. It feels right! But also, it’s not about how it feels. It’s what the numbers say. Episode 42 is the winner by popular vote.
But the popular vote doesn’t always pan out..
[ Music: “Migratory,” from tricolor BIGBAND
Artists: tricolor ]
Like, let’s say you’re at a casual Irish music session with eight players. Let’s say two of those musicians brought their own amplifiers. Let’s just call those guys Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Now let’s say the six without amps start up The Kesh Jig.
[ Music: “The Kesh Jig,” from from Foinn Seisiun, Volume 1
Artists: Various ]
But Wisconsin and Pennsylvania start up their own tune. They just start playing The Humours of Glendart.
[ Music: “Humours of Glendart”
Artists: Matt Cranitch and Dave Hennessy ]
So that was is Matt Cranitch and Dave Hennessy. And they would never do that. This example of two miked up players drowning out six people playing The Kesh Jig has never happened at a session I’ve visited. But it’s how the Electoral College system can work for U.S. Presidential elections.
[ Music: Mutey big build reprise ]
The United States is the only democracy in the world with this system. Other countries who have used electoral colleges–Colombia, Chile, Argentina, Finland, and France—all switched to runoff voting systems. Their winners are declared only after receiving support from more than half of those who cast ballots. But the U.S. is still using the Electoral College. It’s a process, not a place, that was established by the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the framers of the Constitution: rich businessmen and plantation owners like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and James Wilson.
Scottish-born James Wilson thought it would be fairest and simplest to elect presidents by popular vote. But some of the guys, including Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, didn’t like that idea. They worried that well-meaning, uninformed people could make bad choices. They thought it would be better if Congress—if THEY—could just directly elect the president. They could be like a buffer.
They debated. And when everybody was fed up and exhausted, they decided to try the Holy Roman Empire model. They’d give each state a number of electoral votes. And from there, the candidate with the majority would be the winner.
So each state would automatically gets two votes (for the two Senators, which each State gets, regardless of population or size). And then every state gets one vote for each district’s Representative. States with more people have more representatives.
Let me try a little napkin math.
[ Music: “Barter’s Hill,” from Jolie
Artists: Nightingale ]
Let’s look at California and Wyoming:
California: there are almost 40 million people in California. And California has 54 electoral votes. If you divide 40 million people by 54 electoral votes, that means ONE electoral vote in California represents 740,000 people. Not all of those people are old enough, or out of jail enough to vote. But that’d be the same story in any state.
Meanwhile, Wyoming has about 574,000 people, and they get 3 electoral votes. That means one electoral vote for every 190,000 people?
Hmmm. Confused? Losing the Irish music plot? Let’s go back to the Kesh Jig.
[ Music: “Kesh Jig,” from FleadhTV
Artists: Dervish & Friends ]
Say I’ve been invited to lead a session. I’m sitting with seven other musicians—two flute players, two fiddles, one banjo, one accordion, one guitar player. Nice balanced group. Might be a nice night of music! Like this moment back in 2015, when a bunch of musicians played together at the Fleadh in Sligo.
Well if I were trying to get a good session happening, I’d want to accommodate and involve as many players as possible. I’d want to start a popular tune.
I could go around the circle and ask each person to start a tune. But this can feel a little contrived at best. And while it can be sweet and fun, it can also lead to a very inconsistent pace, since we all have different tempos and rhythmic approaches.
So, I want to be a good leader. I want it to sound good. I want it to work for the most amount of people. So I’m going to start a tune that I think most players will know. I play a few notes, see what tune comes to mind. And also to kind of telegraph that I’m up for taking the reins, at least to start.
[ plays a few notes of the Kesh Jig, out of time ]
I am hinting at the Kesh Jig. But before I settle on the tune, the banjo player says “let’s take a vote. How about each group of instruments gets one representative. We’ll tally the votes and then play the winning jig.”
To be clear, this has never happened. It would be cumbersome and silly. But the electoral college is cumbersome and silly. So… here we go.
[ Music: “Grupai Ceol Theme reprise ]
Each section is choosing a tune. The flutes are the first to decide, and they whisper their choice to me: the Kesh Jig.
The banjo player is next. He mouths “Kesh” across the room. It’s smooth. It’s clear.
Then the guitar player says “how about Humours of Glendart” out loud. Haha. Okay.
The accordion player shrugs and asks if anyone wants a drink.
And the fiddles huddle. I have keen hearing, so I know they’ve chosen The Kesh Jig. They go through the formality of sending a representative over. And guess what? When the fiddle rep gets to me—let’s just call him Penn—he doesn’t say The Kesh Jig, which is what they had clearly chosen. Instead he says Humours of Glendart. And he winks. Hmmm…
Let’s set honesty and moral scruples aside for a mo. And let’s just dispassionately note that if we’d done the popular vote, it would have been four votes for Kesh, and two for Glendart. Kesh would have won. And we’d all have drinks from the accordion player.
As it turns out, faithless elector aside, it’s still a win for Kesh. Two flutes for Kesh (that’s one electoral vote). Banjo for Kesh (he’s just one guy, but he also gets one electoral vote, too). On the Glendart side it was guitar for Glendart (so one electoral vote). And even though the fiddles were split, the faithless fiddle cast for Glendart, so that’s one electoral vote. That’s how electoral votes go—winner takes all. It’s two to two, because the accordion player abstained. He’s still getting drinks. There’s a big line at the bar on election night…
So I’m the tie breaker. I go for Kesh. Ttry to counter the unfairness. Kesh still wins. But if the accordion player had bothered to vote, or if I had broken the tie the other way, there could have been a different outcome.
33 states have laws that require electors to follow the popular vote. But there are no official restrictions in Idaho, South Dakota, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Georgia, and…. Pennsylvania.
Even in those states, it’s rare for electors to break with the popular vote in their states….
But in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, Trump v Clinton, a record high number of electors broke with their political party and cast divergent votes for President.
* * * * *
[ Music: “Freedom Come All Ye,” from Ports of Call
Artists: Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas ]
When I first launched the Irish Music Stories podcast in February 2017, the United States had just ushered in a new President. There had been two top candidates: one had been in public service for nearly five decades as an attorney, First Lady, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State. The other had no political experience. He had been on a reality TV show; and had run six casinos and hotels into bankruptcy.
Hilary R. Clinton received almost 3 million more votes than Donald J Trump. But because of the Electoral College, she lost the election. And now, eight years later, we still have the Electoral college. And once again we have a candidate with a lifetime of public service: Kamala D Harris was Attorney General, State Senator, and is the sitting Vice President. And Donald Trump is back as challenger.
This time around, he’s almost 80 years old now, and he refuses to release any medical records. If he is hiding something, it’s important for his voters to learn about his running mate James David Vance, who would be next in line for the high office.
I’m all about knowing the tune I’m voting for. So, the VP tl;dr is this:
James D Vance is 40 years old. He was in the marines and worked as a public relations officer for the military. Then he worked for a corporate lawyer for a year, published a memoir about his life, and worked in venture capital for a couple of years. He began his political career last year, in 2023, as Ohio Junior Senator. He’s almost 40 years younger than Trump. So it’d be like if the Kesh Jig’s running mate were a brand new tune. And a recent composition is not a common choice for a session leader who’s trying to serve a majority of musicians. If I start some newfangled jig in a session, there are probably gonna be a lot of players sitting in that session who will be left out.
Meanwhile, 60 year old Timothy J Walz, Kamala Harris’s running mate, was a public school teacher, football coach and Army National Guardsman before beginning his political service in 2006. He was a Minnesota Representative, reelected to the House five times. Then he was elected governor of Minnesota in 2018, and reelected in 2022. He’s got experience in public service. And when you’re playing in a public house (a pub), you usually go for the jigs with more experience. A Jig in G or D that’s been around the block—something you might find in Captain Francis O’Neill’s early 20th century tune collections.
It’s good to know what candidates—or tunes—you’re voting for.
In the case of Kesh v Glendart, there’s a lot to tell! I’ll unfold details about each candidate, right after my dear son Nigel acknowledges this month’s supporters. I could not keep this project going without all of you.
[ Music: Barter Hill reprise ]
>> Nigel: Thank you to Susan Walsh, John Ploch, Tom Frederick, Paul DeCamp, Jonathan Duvick, Matt Jensen, Gerry Corr, Mike Voss, Sean Carroll, Isobel McMahon, Bob Suchor, Rick Rubin, Ken Doyle, Chris Armstrong, Ian Bittle, Chris Murphy, John Sullivan, Heather Carroll, Michael Craine, Adele Megann, Karin Kettinring, Paul Davis, Edward O’Dwyer, the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast, John Sigler, Randall Semagin, Ron Kral, Isaiah Hall, and David Vaughan.
Thanks a lot, folks. And now back to Kesh v Glendart
Kesh is a village in County Fermanagh, in the North of Ireland. Kesh is also an anglicisation of an Irish word ceis, which means ‘a wicker bridge.’ So this melody [sings first phrase] as been pretty consistently played like this—and in the very people friendly key of G, as it first appeared in George Petrie’s 1855 collection. But it’s gone by many different names before settling on The Kesh Jig.
In The Petrie Collection of the Ancient Music of Ireland, it’s called “Tear the Callies” and it’s written out in 12/8 time, like a slide. And the first phrase spells out an E Minor chord [ sings A part ]. But it’s the same tune.
The tune also shows up in Francis O’Neill’s first book, his 1903 Music of Ireland. O’Neill called it “The Spring Well.” He had a penchant for flowery titles. Names that ‘sounded’ more Irish, or rural. He was, after all, a flute player who moved from County Cork to Chicago. And working as Chief of Police might have had some grit and grind. Assigning pastoral, nostalgic names might have been a small comfort—and it was his way of presenting what he thought Ireland should or could feel like.
The first commercial recording of this melody came about because of Ellen O’Byrne in New York City. Around 1890, she’d emigrated from Leitrim, in the Northwest of Ireland, and married a Dutch immigrant, Justus DeWitt
[Music: “Snowy Breasted Pearl,” from 1906 recording (released in 1922
Artist: John McCormack ]
Ellen and Justus ran a real estate and travel agent business. And they opened a store carrying all things Irish, things from back home, including recordings from John McCormack, which my father-in-law would not want me to talk over. Though he’d agree that calling it the O’Byrne DeWitt store, with both of their names on the marquis, was a big deal in 1900.
[ music swells ]
[ Music: “Meaning of Life,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Artist/Composer: Matt Heaton ]
These recordings were so important for people—still are. They bring Ireland and family and love straight into the heart. And they brought droves of customers straight into the O’Byrne DeWitt store. The McCormack recordings, musical instruments, Irish flags. All this stock flew off the shelves. And Ellen and Justus just couldn’t keep up with demand.
So Ellen approached Columbia Records and urged them to record Irish music. She promised there would be customers. Columbia said sure, if you buy 500 copies in advance.
Ellen asked her son to go to Celtic Park in Queens to hear all the Sunday afternoon buskers. Justus Jr. met Eddie Herborn and accordion player John Wheeler. They arranged a recording session with Columbia, and Ellen went door-to-door to pre-sell recordings and quickly sold out.
Her idea was a huge success. Eddie and John made hit records and launched a trend of “ethnic recordings.” They released this one in 1917, which they called “The Rambler’s Jig.”
You can hear—it’s the Kesh.
[ Music: “The Rambler’s Jig,” from 1912 recording
Artists: Eddie Herborn and John Wheeler ]
Columbia went on to hire a stable of Irish musicians, including Sligo fiddle star Michael Coleman, who also recorded this tune and called it “Kerrigan’s Jig.”
RCA jumped on bandwagon, with piper Patsy Touhey on their roster.
The O’Byrne DeWitt business flourished as a travel agency and music shop. They opened another store in Boston just before Ellen died in 1925,
Justus Jr continued to sell records from Columbia, RCA, and later Decca. And then he set up his own Copley record label in 1948
Sligo fiddle player Paddy Killoran recorded the tune in 1949, and he called it The Kesh Jig. After that, the name stuck.
[ Music: “Kesh Jig,” from 1975 The First Album
Artists: The Bothy Band ]
Sean McGuire, Joe Burke and the Boys of the Lough all called it the Kesh jig in the early 70s. Then the Bothy Band released their hit record in 1975.Kesh was the first tune on the album.
Pretty much every Irish player knows that recording. It may have been a new, progressive approach—but it was still the same populist Kesh Jig.
[ Music: “Humours of Glendart,” reprise from Foinn Seisiun ]
Kesh’s opponent, the Humours of Glendart, is a little more off the beaten path. Humours is a term that can mean mood, vibe, essence. The Humours of Glendart would mean the character of the town of Glendart—which is in Cork, very near Francis O’Neill’s birthplace.
Humours can also mean bodily fluids. And before indoor plumbing, and before we knew about sanitation, this might have had a different importance for people. Thankfully, we’re voting for our popular jig today, in the era of indoor toilets.
Humours aside, like The Kesh Jig, this tune appeared in that 1855 George Petrie Collection. But he’s written it out in the key of… F
F is NOT the people’s key. Maybe the name of the tune, and the overall humours of the melody has kind of a folksy vibe. But voting for a tune in F would cut a lot of people out of the conversation.
19th century piper and vicar Canon James Goodman also included this tune in his manuscript. He called it The Housemaid. His incredible collection included 2000 Irish tunes, songs, and poems that he’d encountered in the busy ports of Cork and Kerry. So much coming and going. Musicians from all over. If Humours of Glendart was in circulation back then, it was probably a well traveled tune by the mid 1800s. So Francis O’Neill may have heard it in Cork—or on a ship—before settling in Chicago.
in 1904, O’Neill recorded Leitrim piper and flute player James Early playing the tune.
[ Music: “Saddle the Pony,” from Wax Cylinder Recordings
Artist: James Early ]
They called it Saddle the Pony on the recording, but O’Neill calls it East at Glendart in his 1907 book.
[ music swells ]
It’s kinda in C on the recording, because of the way the pipes were tuned, and the way the recording has survived. But I assume Early played it with D fingerings.
Humours of Glendart has been recorded by numerous musicians, including a 2020 cut from melodeon player Bobby Gardiner. He’s often associated with the tune.
[ Music: Humours of Glendart,” from Rough Raelach Volume 1
Artist: Bobby Gardiner & Jack Talty]
There are 20 recordings of Humours of Glendart on IrishTune.info (vs 19 for the Kesh). But it doesn’t appear in members’ collections nearly as many times as Kesh. Glendart is definitely the outsider candidate here. And just imagine if it won the contest, and people started playing it in F again…
[ B part of Glendart in F ]
Kind of a bait and switch.
[ Music: “Meaning of Life,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Artist/Composer: Matt Heaton ]
Well, before I vote, it feels responsible to know the tunes, to know their history, and to consider how they’re gonna work for the most number of people,
So in the case of Kesh v Glendart, we’re looking at a Driving jig in G vs a loping tune in D.
Kesh has dynamic harmonic motion in the first two bars; Glendart is more static.
The range of the Kesh jig is basically G as the central bass note, with an occasional F# for the ending turnarounds, and it goes up to a high b…
Glendart goes down to low D and up to high f#.
Okay, Irish music lovers. As you know, I’m setting up Kesh v Glendart like it’s a Presidential contest. And of course, I am not just voting for (or speaking about) tunes in this Autumn of 2024. I’m also casting my ballot in the U.S. Presidential Election.
[ Music: “My Love is in America” phrase ]
With the Irish Music Stories project, I go into the weeds about the non musical story in each episode to give context. To entertain. To raise questions. To air big issues—and then try to bring them back to 16 bars of music, which can feel more manageable. Death and loss; Physical fitness; the nutritional and emotional significance of food; parenting; ecology; instrument making since prehistoric times: I’ve shared details about a lot of topics here.
So, brace yourselves, here are a few details for our Presidential contest side plot.
In the case of Harris v Trump we’re talking about a Gen X lawyer who is fighting for “A new way forward” vs a Boomer TV and a real estate man who says he’ll “make America great again.”
[ Music: “Triumph Theme” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Artist/Composer: Matt Heaton ]
She wants to reform immigration with a bipartisan border security bill; he wants to carry out the largest mass deportation effort in American history.
She wants to cut taxes for most people, lower health care and housing costs, and offer more loans to small businesses… by raising taxes on billionaires and corporations.
He wants to keep taxes low for billionaires and corporations, while also imposing steep tariffs on Chinese-made products, and this he says will give workers bigger paychecks.
She wants to expand voting rights, he wants to restrict them.
She wants to increase health coverage for new mothers and restore reproductive freedoms.
He vows to nominate more conservative judges, like the ones he appointed who overturned the right to an abortion. And says he might repeal the Affordable Care Act.
She wants to make child and senior care more affordable, and triple public school funding. He wants to dismantle the Department of Education and let parents elect school principals directly.
She talks vaguely of a carbon-neutral economy, though the Biden-Harris administration has produced and exported the most crude oil out of any country, at any time. He calls electric vehicles nonsense, he left the Paris Climate Accord in his first term, and if he’s elected this time, he wants to increase oil and gas production at “levels nobody’s ever seen before.”
Seems like energy policy in general is off getting drinks with the accordion player…
[ Music: “Pick and Drive,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Artist/Composer: Matt Heaton ]
As for guns, she wants to ban assault weapons, and require background checks and red flag laws, and hire and train officers about gun violence prevention.
He’s called himself the National Rifle Association’s best friend, and he wants to use the military to tackle his domestic political opponents, and says if he doesn’t get elected it will be a “bloodbath.”
She supports a ceasefire in Gaza. She offers more details, but the whole thing is very complicated. So is immigration. Which is why SHE, a Democrat, says she will appoint experts including Republicans to help advise.
She also supports Ukraine against Russia’s aggression; and does not support Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear sites.
He said he would have “hit the Iran nuclear first and worry about the rest later.”
[ Music: “E Chimes,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Artist/Composer: Matt Heaton ]
If he wins the election, this kind of action won’t be checked by a Mattis or a Kelly this time around. That’s another promise: to surround himself with people who will allow him to do what he really wants to do. And this is a big reason why most of his former cabinet and former senior staff aren’t endorsing him in 2024. Because this vision is empty of specialists, professionals, and checks and balances.
Still, this army of one promises that he’ll settle with Russia and end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours, and he’ll bring lasting peace to the Middle East.
Because he’s elderly, it’s important to note that his VP appears to be lockstep with many of these plans, including the tax and deportation plans. And goes further with his support of a national abortion ban and opposes the Respect for Marriage Act protecting same-sex and interracial marriages. He also wrote the intro to Kevin Roberts’s forthcoming book about Project 2025, a governing plan by the Heritage Foundation. In the foreword, JD Vance wrote, “it’s time to circle the wagons and load the muskets.”
Well… time to hitch our wagons and head to the ballot box.
[ Freedom Come All Ye reprise ]
Harris v Trump
Kesh v Glendart
If you love one more than the other, or if you’re ambivalent about both, the session is still gonna go on. Might as well weigh in and hope for something harmonious.
There’s no changing the Electoral College today. Nothing to be done about faithless electors. Or FAKE electors: that was fun in 2020, when Republicans in some states created these official-looking documents on the day that all the electors were meeting to officially cast their votes.
These are curve balls. But learning the tunes and showing up to vote is still a pretty straight shot.
[ Music: “Congress Reel” from The Corner House
Artists: The Irish Tradition ]
And hey, if things don’t go your way, the accordion player is still waiting in the queue at the bar. Even if he didn’t bother to vote, I don’t think it’s too late to get an order in.
Thank you for tuning in! And thank you to the historians, music collectors, and archivists who help us learn about where music has been… and where it’s going. The episode of IMS was produced by me, Shannon Heaton. Find all show notes, playlists and videos at IrishMusicStories.org, and subscribe in your favorite podcast app, so you won’t miss my next episode. I’m off to make sure that my ballot has been counted. I delivered it to City Hall… googling Track my Ballot. Getting the page to the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—easy to type in my info. And… ACCEPTED! It’s in.
May the best (or better) tune win.
[ Music: “Pound the Floor,” from Production Music Made for Irish Music Stories
Artist/Composer: Matt Heaton ]
OUTRO Easter Egg: I’m off to make sure that my ballot has been counted. I delivered it to City Hall, and in my little search engine I’m going to type Track My Ballot. Getting the page to the Secretary of the Page of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Easy to type in my information here. And…. Accepted! It’s in!
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FLUTE/SINGING/PODCASTING
World-reared, Boston-based flute player, singer, composer, teacher, and host of Irish Music