The Patriot Game

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• Credits
  • Cover Photo: Stanley Matchett

• Track Sources
  • Tracks: 6, 7 & 12 are from The Dubliners (with Luke Kelly) (1964, UK)
  • Tracks: 1 & 11 are from In Concert (1965, UK)
  • Tracks: 2 & 8-10 are from Mainly Barney (1966, UK)
  • Track: 4 is a previously unreleased, alternate take, of "Love is Pleasing".
    • This track is probably from The Dubliners (with Luke Kelly) recording session.
    • It also appears as a "bonus" track on the same titled 2003 expanded CD.
  • I cannot confirm the details on Tracks: 3 & 5, both titled "Instrumental".
    • However, one of the "bonus" tracks on the expanded CD release, The Dubliners (with Luke Kelly) is titled "Instrumental" — and is more than likely one of these …

• Notes
  • Another compilation that is more interesting than most, as it includes all of the tracks from the EP release, Mainly Barney, as well as the (1 to 3) previously unreleased tracks (above).

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Sleeve Notes

Dublin. The time 5 o'clock on a sunny afternoon. I'm just sitting there, fingers posed tentatively over the typewriter keys, working on a radio show.

The phone rings, and the conversation goes something like this:
"How would you like to write the sleeve notes for the Dubliners' next album?"
"Sure. When do you want them? Yesterday?"
"Right!"
"How about tomorrow?"
"OK."

Seconds after putting down the receiver comes the full realisation of what I've let myself in for.

After all, what can you say about the Dubliners that hasn't been said over and over again. To trot out the same old superlatives and platitudes would amount to an impertinence nothing short of gilding the lily.

It this were their first, second or third LP. the usual biographical details might be in order. But I've lost count of the number of discs by the Dubliners (and so, I suspect, have they). Anyhow, anyone who isn't familiar with the essential facts about them at this stage can't be all that interested in the subject.

In short, the Dubliners are much too well known to regime this kind of press officer-ish approach. In any case, if a picture really is worth a thousand words, then it seems to me that even a snatch of their music is worth all the words written on the back of all their LPs.

One thing, though, that may be worth repeating is that the Dubliners are uncompromising where their music is concerned.

I think they'd agree with something Gordon Lighttoot once said "I learned a long way back that the public have to get around to you. You don't get around to the public."

It didn't take too long in their case, but before the public got around to the Dubliners, they were making music in that same individual way. They still are. And, in the unlikely event of the public losing interest in them, you can bet they'll keep on doing so for their own enjoyment and that of a few friends.

Within this sleeve you'll find a fairly typical sampling from the Dubliners' vast repertoire. I'm grateful for the inclusion of two special favourites of mine, "The Patriot Game" and "The Rocky Road to Dublin", which was probably a shade slower in its original instrumental form. Robert Sherman has written of it as "a walking song, if you have ever walked down a rocky road in your bare feet, you can gut the feel of the rhythm."

Whatever your own particular preferences may be, here's wishing you many a pleasant hour in the Dubliners' unique company.

Ken Stewart
Dublin Evening News