Music Sunday: The St. Patrick's Day Edition

Music Sunday. Yeah, it's supposed to be Music Sunday today.

It's also Saint Patrick's Day. And a beautiful Saint Pat's day it is here in Central California. Alas, the wind is blowing the pollen around and I've got the mother of all allergy headaches, complete with sneezing, and so I'm in much of a mood to do anything.

However, I like me some Irish musicians, and so I'm going to leave a couple of clips of songs from musicians from that part of the world.

Gary Moore left us awhile back, alas, but he left us with some fantastic music. The first of his songs that I ever heard, and still my favorite, is "Over the Hills and Far Away" (not to be confused with a different song by the same name by Led Zeppelin), here from a live performance in Stockholm in 1987, the year the song came out:



One more from Gary Moore, "Still Got the Blues". No other words are necessary, except that this is a great song:



Another song from an Irish musician that I've always loved is "Moondance", by Van Morrison. I'm not crazy about all of his work, but this song just has that something that makes it perfect, at least to my ears. It's hard to believe that this song has been around for 43 years now:



And, of course, Ireland has also given us the World's Greatest Rock'n'Roll Band.

Yes, I know. Some people criticize U2 for being too political, or for being political at all. But, you know, I'm not sure how one grows up in Ireland without becoming political. And, yes, some of U2's songs are very political. That doesn't make them not good songs. For example, there's "Bullet the Blue Sky", which is very political. And also a kick-ass rock'n'roll song. As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't get heard enough. Here it is, from a live performance at Slane Castle in Ireland:



I've also heard people criticize U2 because they put religion in their music. And, under other circumstances, I might be uncomfortable with religion in their music. But, I've never heard any dogmatic religion in their music. Like this song, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For". This is the religion of the search, not the religion of having all the answers. And that's okay with me: