Corned Beef And Cabbage by BSeed(CharlesKratz)


The Mudcat Forum	The Mudcat Resource Pages	The Mudcat Midi Page	The Digital Tradition Folk Song Server
Back to The Mudcat Songbook		Back to The Song Challenge Winners!
Anyone is welcome to perform these songs in public without royalties; however, if any of them are recorded or published for profit, the writers/composers expect the usual royalties.

St. Patrick's Day 2000 Special Song Challenge: Bob, Corned Beef and The Devil -- Dateline Boston, USA. Some Irish Catholics may have a beef with the church on St. Patrick's Day. This year, the holiday falls on a Friday in Lent, the period when Roman Catholics are encouraged to abstain from eating meat as an act of penance and a reminder of the sacrifices of Jesus. Many Catholic bishops, including Boston's and New York's, are giving dispensation to parishioners who want to partake of the traditional Irish-American meal of corned beef and cabbage. But some bishops are refusing to let their congregations off the hook, like Bishop Sean O'Malley of Fall River, Massachusetts, has not issued a dispensation. As a result, Catholics with a hankering for corned beef on March 17th may be heading to nearby Boston. But even without a dispensation, there is a possible out for those who don't want to ignore the rules but feel a craving for corned beef: They can travel to another diocese where the meal is deemed OK. "Corned beef and cabbage is a mainstay of our menu," says Jerry Burke, owner of Doyle's Cafe, an Irish pub in Boston's Jamaica Plains neighborhood, "And people are going to do it anyway." Mr. Burke expects to sell thousands of pounds of corned beef and cabbage this Friday. Also included in the no-no parishes are those in Rockville Centre, New York and Brooklyn, New York."

Corned Beef And Cabbage by BSeed(CharlesKratz)
(Tune: "The Ballad of Lizzie Borden")

Yesterday in old Fall River Bishop Sean O'Malley said
Irish mustn't eat their saint's day fare, they must eat fish instead,
We can have our finnan haddie, we can dine on sole or cod,
But bloody beef and cabbage is an affront to our God.

(Chorus):
Oh, we gotta have our corned beef here in Massachusetts,
The thought of scrod just fills our hearts with gloom.
Oh, without corned beef and cabbage here in Massachusetts,
Saint Pat would be a-spinnin' in his tomb.

Now the laddies at the Shamrock bar have gone and hired a bus
And they're headed up to Boston where the church won't make a fuss;
They will eat corned beef and cabbage 'til it's comin' out their ears,
'Cause the Boston bishop's dispensation's eased them of their fears.