On this Saturday night, let's broaden our horizons a bit and talk music. Specifically, what is the best record made about Irish immigrants in America? Why it has got to be this, the album The Man Who Built America, by the Irish band Horslips. I'm holding the record -- yes, the record -- in my hands now -- and yes it is a shock to realize that it came out in 1979 and that I bought it soon afterwards. But it really does hit a lot of the right notes in describing the mix of hope and depair that drives immigration. Consider this, from the song Homesick:
Chances are for takin'/Fortune'll smile on the boldest one/Don't feel forsaken/Keep on believing your time will come and you'll see it through
Isn't that what every immigrant must tell himself? And often there is truth in it. But the hope of a new life is almost always preceded by a disorienting loss of hope in the old. And the band recognizes that a great sense of loss almost always precedes a migration. On the inside record sleeve -- when was the last time you mentioned one of those? -- is a quote fron the Irish language poet Mairtin O Direain that perfectly captures the sad resignation of the migrant. In translation, it reads: "we bade farewell to land, to shore/since fate had forced us to go." The Man Who Built America is a great record because it conveys both the hope and despair, often at the same time.
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