Also, a song written by
Larry Kirwin for his band,
Black 47. It appears as the eleventh song on their second album,
Home of the Brave.
The story of this song starts on their first album (besides the previously released Black 47), Fire of Freedom. The third song on this album, Rockin' the Bronx, is their "history of the band to date" song of the album (each of their albums has at least one of these). In it, Larry Kirwin complains about the poor reception of Black 47 among Irish-Americans in New York. They complain, it seems, about the non-traditionalist sound of the group. Larry retorts with the line, "the next thing you'll be wanting is Danny Boy," a clear reference to the fact that Black 47 is a progressive Irish band, and doesn't wish to sound traditional.
Well, their second album comes along, and they've done their own version of Danny Boy. This one is a hip-hop influenced song about a gay guy, Danny, who comes over to America from Ireland to live his life. He is, of course, poorly received on the docks where he works, but too proud, and too strong to let that stop him. The song ends with Danny dying on a hospital bed, and the narrator sings the traditional lines of Danny Boy to him.
This song was released just before the big fiasco with they gay club that wanted to march in the St. Paddy's Day parade in New York. I've never once seen Black 47 perform this song live (and I can't count the number of times I've seen Black 47 perform).