A St. Paddy's Day Present from Dropkick Murphys

Springsteen lends his voice to Dropkick Murphys’ Irish-punk

By The Burg Staff on Mar. 16, 2011
By Matt Ashare
Back in ’99, the Boston-born ‘n’ bred Irish-punk juggernaut Dropkick Murphys hit the national alt-rock airwaves with “10 Years of Service,” a prescient pro-union anthem that asked “Who’s gonna save us -from this lonely picket line?/Ten years of service but I’m still not worth your time.” In 2004, their amped-up reworking of “Tessie,” a 1902 Broadway musical number, became a rallying cry for an improbable Red Sox World Series run. The following year, on “The Warrior’s Code,” it was a Woody Guthrie poem that provided raw material for the hard-hitting Celtic-rock gem “I’m Shipping Off to Boston,” a track featured prominently in Martin Scorsese’s 2006 film “The Departed.” And just a few weeks ago, the Dropkicks lent their support to protesting public union workers in Wisconsin by issuing a limited edition t-shirt adorned with the title of their latest pro-union call to arms, the blunt and folky “Take ’Em Down.”
     So maybe I should have seen Springsteen coming down the pike. That’s right, 12 songs into the 13-track “Going Out In Style,” Guthrie-loving blue-collar Bruce does his proud best to out-gruff Dropkicks’ singer Al Barr’s bulldog bark on a slamming mandolin-laced cover of the “Zeigfield Follies” ballad “Peg ‘O My Heart.” It’s just one of the high points on this fittingly raucous St. Paddy’s Day present from a band who have never been shy about mining the past for material.
     It’s been over three years since the Dropkicks’ last studio album. But bassist Ken Casey, the only remaining member from the original 1996 lineup and the guiding force behind the Dropkick Murphy ethos, has been far from idle. Instead of bashing out a dozen or so mosh-and-stomp rockers, Casey set out to create an ode to Cornelius Larkin, a fictional immigrant who leaves Ireland at 16, is drafted into the Korean War, has a bunch of kids, and is memorialized in the disc’s liner notes, an obit written by noted Boston memoirist Michael Patrick McDonald (“All Souls,” “Easter Rising”).
     It’s not clear how “Sunday Hardcore Matinee,” a loud, fast romp through the glory days of old-school, all-ages punk that has multi-instrumentalist Jeff DeRosa racing to keep up on banjo, relates to the life Larkin might have led. Or where Larkin fits into the yearning Civil War epic “Broken Hymn,” with its clarion tin whistle melody.

    But you gotta take inspiration where you find it. And “Going Out In Style” is never less than inspired. From the martial drumbeat that crashes into the wall of guitars and bagpipes on “Hang ‘Em High,” a bruising sea-chantey that wouldn’t be out of place in the hands of Davy Jones and his “Pirates of the Caribbean” crew, to the disc’s celebratory title track, a homage to Boston that references Fenway Park and Mt. Calvary cemetery, and drops the names of Mayor Menino and NOFX frontman Fat Mike amid what sounds like an impromptu funeral after-party, “Going Out In Style” is a tribute to certain simple pleasures. Raising a glass of whisky. Singing along to shout-along choruses. And, of course, hearing Springsteen channel his inner punk.http://www.the-burg.com/blogit/entry/springsteen_lends_his_voice_to_dropkick_murphys_irish-punk