Chords for TV3 Finbar Furey Interview
Tempo:
88.45 bpm
Chords used:
Bb
F
Eb
Ab
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
Now our next guest is a man of great musical passion and innovation, a pioneer and a champion
of Irish music.
His singing and songwriting have been described as the gospel which he
has spread across the world.
He is of course Finnbarr Fury.
Very welcome to the show Finnbarr.
Good early morning to you.
Good early, it's very early isn't it?
And I believe you had a late one last night Mr.
Fury.
I did, we had a great crack yesterday.
Went down to the Paris court for a game of golf.
We played in the Pro-Am, the seniors golf tournament is on there.
And we played with
Paul Leonard, beautiful golfer.
Joe Dolan, Mick McCarthy and myself, that was the four
ball.
There was no golf, the crack was 90 all the way around, I can tell you that you
know.
We didn't win it.
Did you not?
No.
What's your handicap?
We'll talk about that later on.
You know what that spells don't you?
Bandit, that's what that spells.
How are you?
I'm in good form at the moment.
Just back off a bit of a tour, a small tour that I was
doing out in the States.
I went down to Seattle, then down to Los Angeles, then into San Francisco,
Quebec.
And just taking it handy you know, just doing what I want to do.
I'm seven years
away from the band this year now.
And life has been perfect, absolutely great.
How much time are you spending on the road?
Not much, I do about three tours a year.
I did six weeks in Australia there before Christmas.
I did three weeks in Germany, Holland, Belgium.
And I spent then about four weeks in the States.
And that was it.
I think the States is brilliant because you can get everything, any time of the day or
night there, especially for a musician.
You were saying that you're doing some talks now in universities about Irish music and Irish culture.
Yeah, I do a lot of universities in the States.
It's one hour program in the middle of the
day, like two o'clock.
And then I do the concert that night, the proper gig that night.
But
I bring the pipes along and the flutes and that and the guitar, talk about who we are,
where the music came from.
I actually do a program on the Irish famine, where I play
the tunes, the melodies and the poetry that I've written for it.
I was telling you earlier on about, I was down in Nevada in California.
I did two concerts
in the, it's the oldest theatre in California, this place.
And there's terrific posters as
you walk in this place of Mark Twain and all of these, Lily Langtry and all these, you
see it only in Judge Roy Bean, if you saw the movie with Paul Newman.
And he's in love
with Lily Langtry.
Well, there's posters over there, still from the past.
And it was
a wonderful theatre to play.
And they came out from the woodwork, the people did.
There
was Indians came, there was cowboys came, everyone had some sort of Irish passion.
And I was brought up to a healing stone by these Indians.
And on the way up this hill,
a healing stone is where you lay down and you start, it's the shape of your body.
And
you lay down and you start to say a prayer to the sky.
And I think I'm the only white
fellow that's ever been allowed to lay down on a stone anyway.
And these Indians took
me up to this graveyard, which was a pioneer's graveyard that came from the famine.
And the
first grave, I remember it because I just sat there and I was nearly in tears now.
The
first grave I saw was Sarah Connolly, native of Galway, died aged 18, 1846.
And I thought,
God help her.
And there's lizards running around this place and sort of rattle snakes
and things like that, and cougars.
You can hear these cougars coughing, the mountain
lions in the distance.
But the whole graveyard was full of people.
And I went through nearly
all the graves.
It was native of Sligo, native of Clare, native of Kildare, like everywhere.
And I got the story, I went into the library and found a story about them.
There were a
bunch of these Irish immigrants that come over during the famine.
And there was no Irish
need to play in New York.
And they couldn't get a place to stay because nobody wanted
them.
And so they all bunched together and decided to go west.
And there was about 200
of them traveled together west.
So when they got as far as Nevada, which was just a mountain
thing then, it was a Sierras, they were attacked by Indians.
So the story goes that this guy
got an arrow in his shoulder.
So three days later, they decided to take the arrow out
of him.
And they found out that the arrowhead was made out of a solid nugget of gold.
And
before this, they were going to have a good war with these Indians, you know.
So instead,
they made friends with them.
So the Indians showed them where to get the gold.
And they
cut it out of the rivers by shaking the moss.
So gold was trapped in the moss.
And that's where the 49 gold rush came from?
Yes.
And then you have the 49ers, the football team and the whole lot, they all sprung out
of Nevada.
And that's the 49 gold rush, the team and all that.
And it was the Paddy who
started all of that.
So when you go back into the graveyard, which I did, I finished the
last concert there and I went back up to the graveyard about midnight.
And I took out the
pipes and I played the Koolen, just a lament on the pipes.
And I said, great, fair play
to you.
So it's, you know, America's full of those places, you know, where the Irish have been.
Filmar, before you play a song for us, a good friend of yours and a good friend of
the industry has died over the weekend.
Jim Hanty looked after you for a couple of years.
Jim was great.
I did.
Jim, we owe, I suppose, we owe our whole life to Jim, our whole success
of your life to Jim.
Jim was one of the greatest PRO men of all time.
And he was a very funny
character.
And I actually went to see him a few weeks ago before he died.
And he sort
of would only last 10 minutes because he couldn't hold a conversation.
He used to get
tired very easy, you know.
And on my way out the door, he turned around to me, he says,
Finny.
I said, what, Jim?
He says, I was a good one, wasn't I?
I said, you were the best,
Jim.
He says, I made you, didn't I?
I said, you did, Jim.
I said, you made a lot more
artists in this country, too.
He was brilliant.
But Jim started with, he had brilliant ideas.
Like when you think about the 70s and 80s in this country, you know, like there was
bands, there was folk groups just sprouting up.
And for a folk group to get a number one
in Australia with an album called Sweet Sixteen like we did, that was Jim's work, you know.
And till we got to number 12 on top of the pops, you know, in England, that was Jim,
you know.
Well, that and a great song, though, it has to be said, and a great performance.
Well, Sweet Sixteen was a great idea.
It was Jim's idea because it was written by a Tipperary
man.
And my father actually used to sing the song.
And Jimmy Thornton wrote the song.
And
I was humming it one night.
And Jim says, God, you should record that.
But it was too
short.
So I wrote the banjo piece for it.
So I played the banjo, went in, produced it,
arranged it, sang it with the band, went off to America, came back, was number one.
I was
number 12, I think, in the British charts.
And then number one in Australia.
But then
the album came out, and that went number one.
But like we've had eight number one albums
in this country.
For a folk band, that's incredible, you know.
Listen to me, it would be an awful pity to have you here with that guitar and not have
you actually use it.
So any chance of a blast or something?
Yeah, well, it's a bit early in the morning to go heavy, you know what I mean?
And this
voice [Bb] is like a, when it gets going, it's a fairly
So I was singing this one for
[Eb] all the new mammies out [Bb] there.
I remember going into the hospital to the comb, and my
wife gave birth to Finbar, our youngest baby.
He's nine now.
He's probably sitting watching
this.
Cringing.
No, he's not.
He loves it, actually.
He's a very good musician, too.
So I wrote this song, which is [F] called [Bb] Wondrous Love.
[F]
[Bb] Born to us [F] as sunshine blessed [Bb] by angels, a perfect light [F] of hope with eyes [Bb] of innocence.
[Eb] Wondrous love [Bb] and tenderness,
[F] thank you for [Bb] this tiny bliss.
[Eb] I hear the cry [Bb] of [F] newborn
life reaching for the world.
I thank you for [F] these feelings you [Bb] have shown me.
For you
I know [F] are hearts of all [Bb] who love me.
[Eb] Wondrous [Bb] love and tenderness, I thank you [Ab] for
[Eb] [N]
of Irish music.
His singing and songwriting have been described as the gospel which he
has spread across the world.
He is of course Finnbarr Fury.
Very welcome to the show Finnbarr.
Good early morning to you.
Good early, it's very early isn't it?
And I believe you had a late one last night Mr.
Fury.
I did, we had a great crack yesterday.
Went down to the Paris court for a game of golf.
We played in the Pro-Am, the seniors golf tournament is on there.
And we played with
Paul Leonard, beautiful golfer.
Joe Dolan, Mick McCarthy and myself, that was the four
ball.
There was no golf, the crack was 90 all the way around, I can tell you that you
know.
We didn't win it.
Did you not?
No.
What's your handicap?
We'll talk about that later on.
You know what that spells don't you?
Bandit, that's what that spells.
How are you?
I'm in good form at the moment.
Just back off a bit of a tour, a small tour that I was
doing out in the States.
I went down to Seattle, then down to Los Angeles, then into San Francisco,
Quebec.
And just taking it handy you know, just doing what I want to do.
I'm seven years
away from the band this year now.
And life has been perfect, absolutely great.
How much time are you spending on the road?
Not much, I do about three tours a year.
I did six weeks in Australia there before Christmas.
I did three weeks in Germany, Holland, Belgium.
And I spent then about four weeks in the States.
And that was it.
I think the States is brilliant because you can get everything, any time of the day or
night there, especially for a musician.
You were saying that you're doing some talks now in universities about Irish music and Irish culture.
Yeah, I do a lot of universities in the States.
It's one hour program in the middle of the
day, like two o'clock.
And then I do the concert that night, the proper gig that night.
But
I bring the pipes along and the flutes and that and the guitar, talk about who we are,
where the music came from.
I actually do a program on the Irish famine, where I play
the tunes, the melodies and the poetry that I've written for it.
I was telling you earlier on about, I was down in Nevada in California.
I did two concerts
in the, it's the oldest theatre in California, this place.
And there's terrific posters as
you walk in this place of Mark Twain and all of these, Lily Langtry and all these, you
see it only in Judge Roy Bean, if you saw the movie with Paul Newman.
And he's in love
with Lily Langtry.
Well, there's posters over there, still from the past.
And it was
a wonderful theatre to play.
And they came out from the woodwork, the people did.
There
was Indians came, there was cowboys came, everyone had some sort of Irish passion.
And I was brought up to a healing stone by these Indians.
And on the way up this hill,
a healing stone is where you lay down and you start, it's the shape of your body.
And
you lay down and you start to say a prayer to the sky.
And I think I'm the only white
fellow that's ever been allowed to lay down on a stone anyway.
And these Indians took
me up to this graveyard, which was a pioneer's graveyard that came from the famine.
And the
first grave, I remember it because I just sat there and I was nearly in tears now.
The
first grave I saw was Sarah Connolly, native of Galway, died aged 18, 1846.
And I thought,
God help her.
And there's lizards running around this place and sort of rattle snakes
and things like that, and cougars.
You can hear these cougars coughing, the mountain
lions in the distance.
But the whole graveyard was full of people.
And I went through nearly
all the graves.
It was native of Sligo, native of Clare, native of Kildare, like everywhere.
And I got the story, I went into the library and found a story about them.
There were a
bunch of these Irish immigrants that come over during the famine.
And there was no Irish
need to play in New York.
And they couldn't get a place to stay because nobody wanted
them.
And so they all bunched together and decided to go west.
And there was about 200
of them traveled together west.
So when they got as far as Nevada, which was just a mountain
thing then, it was a Sierras, they were attacked by Indians.
So the story goes that this guy
got an arrow in his shoulder.
So three days later, they decided to take the arrow out
of him.
And they found out that the arrowhead was made out of a solid nugget of gold.
And
before this, they were going to have a good war with these Indians, you know.
So instead,
they made friends with them.
So the Indians showed them where to get the gold.
And they
cut it out of the rivers by shaking the moss.
So gold was trapped in the moss.
And that's where the 49 gold rush came from?
Yes.
And then you have the 49ers, the football team and the whole lot, they all sprung out
of Nevada.
And that's the 49 gold rush, the team and all that.
And it was the Paddy who
started all of that.
So when you go back into the graveyard, which I did, I finished the
last concert there and I went back up to the graveyard about midnight.
And I took out the
pipes and I played the Koolen, just a lament on the pipes.
And I said, great, fair play
to you.
So it's, you know, America's full of those places, you know, where the Irish have been.
Filmar, before you play a song for us, a good friend of yours and a good friend of
the industry has died over the weekend.
Jim Hanty looked after you for a couple of years.
Jim was great.
I did.
Jim, we owe, I suppose, we owe our whole life to Jim, our whole success
of your life to Jim.
Jim was one of the greatest PRO men of all time.
And he was a very funny
character.
And I actually went to see him a few weeks ago before he died.
And he sort
of would only last 10 minutes because he couldn't hold a conversation.
He used to get
tired very easy, you know.
And on my way out the door, he turned around to me, he says,
Finny.
I said, what, Jim?
He says, I was a good one, wasn't I?
I said, you were the best,
Jim.
He says, I made you, didn't I?
I said, you did, Jim.
I said, you made a lot more
artists in this country, too.
He was brilliant.
But Jim started with, he had brilliant ideas.
Like when you think about the 70s and 80s in this country, you know, like there was
bands, there was folk groups just sprouting up.
And for a folk group to get a number one
in Australia with an album called Sweet Sixteen like we did, that was Jim's work, you know.
And till we got to number 12 on top of the pops, you know, in England, that was Jim,
you know.
Well, that and a great song, though, it has to be said, and a great performance.
Well, Sweet Sixteen was a great idea.
It was Jim's idea because it was written by a Tipperary
man.
And my father actually used to sing the song.
And Jimmy Thornton wrote the song.
And
I was humming it one night.
And Jim says, God, you should record that.
But it was too
short.
So I wrote the banjo piece for it.
So I played the banjo, went in, produced it,
arranged it, sang it with the band, went off to America, came back, was number one.
I was
number 12, I think, in the British charts.
And then number one in Australia.
But then
the album came out, and that went number one.
But like we've had eight number one albums
in this country.
For a folk band, that's incredible, you know.
Listen to me, it would be an awful pity to have you here with that guitar and not have
you actually use it.
So any chance of a blast or something?
Yeah, well, it's a bit early in the morning to go heavy, you know what I mean?
And this
voice [Bb] is like a, when it gets going, it's a fairly
So I was singing this one for
[Eb] all the new mammies out [Bb] there.
I remember going into the hospital to the comb, and my
wife gave birth to Finbar, our youngest baby.
He's nine now.
He's probably sitting watching
this.
Cringing.
No, he's not.
He loves it, actually.
He's a very good musician, too.
So I wrote this song, which is [F] called [Bb] Wondrous Love.
[F]
[Bb] Born to us [F] as sunshine blessed [Bb] by angels, a perfect light [F] of hope with eyes [Bb] of innocence.
[Eb] Wondrous love [Bb] and tenderness,
[F] thank you for [Bb] this tiny bliss.
[Eb] I hear the cry [Bb] of [F] newborn
life reaching for the world.
I thank you for [F] these feelings you [Bb] have shown me.
For you
I know [F] are hearts of all [Bb] who love me.
[Eb] Wondrous [Bb] love and tenderness, I thank you [Ab] for
[Eb] [N]
Key:
Bb
F
Eb
Ab
Bb
F
Eb
Ab
Now our next guest is a man of great musical passion and innovation, a pioneer and a champion
of Irish music.
His singing and songwriting have been described as the gospel which he
has spread across the world.
He is of course Finnbarr Fury.
Very welcome to the show Finnbarr.
Good early morning to you.
Good early, it's very early isn't it?
And I believe you had a late one last night Mr.
Fury.
I did, we had a great crack yesterday.
Went down to the Paris court for a game of golf.
We played in the Pro-Am, the seniors golf tournament is on there.
And we played with
Paul Leonard, beautiful golfer.
Joe Dolan, Mick McCarthy and myself, that was the four
ball.
There was no golf, the crack was 90 all the way around, I can tell you that you
know.
We didn't win it.
Did you not?
No.
What's your handicap? _ _ _ _
We'll talk about that later on.
You know what that spells don't you?
Bandit, that's what that spells.
How are you?
I'm in good form at the moment.
Just back off a bit of a tour, a small tour that I was
doing out in the States.
I went down to Seattle, then down to Los Angeles, then into San Francisco,
Quebec.
And just taking it handy you know, just doing what I want to do.
I'm seven years
away from the band this year now.
And life has been perfect, absolutely great.
How much time are you spending on the road?
Not much, I do about three tours a year.
I did six weeks in Australia there before Christmas.
_ I did three weeks in Germany, Holland, Belgium.
And I spent _ then about four weeks in the States.
And that was it.
I think the States is brilliant because you can get everything, any time of the day or
night there, especially for a musician.
You were saying that you're doing some talks now in universities about Irish music and Irish culture.
Yeah, I do a lot of universities in the States.
It's one hour program in the middle of the
day, like two o'clock.
And then I do the concert that night, the proper gig that night.
But
I bring the pipes along and the flutes and that and the guitar, talk about who we are,
where the music came from.
I actually do a program on the Irish famine, where I play
the tunes, the melodies and the poetry that I've written for it.
I was telling you earlier on about, I was down in Nevada in California.
I did two concerts
in the, it's the oldest theatre in California, this place.
And there's terrific posters as
you walk in this place of Mark Twain and all of these, _ Lily Langtry and all these, you
see it only in Judge Roy Bean, if you saw the movie with Paul Newman.
And he's in love
with Lily Langtry.
Well, there's posters over there, still from the past.
And it was
a wonderful theatre to play.
And they came out from the woodwork, the people did.
There
was Indians came, there was cowboys came, everyone had some sort of Irish passion.
_ And I was brought up to a healing stone by these Indians.
And on the way up this hill,
a healing stone is where you lay down and you start, it's the shape of your body.
And
you lay down and you start to say a prayer to the sky.
And I think I'm the only white
fellow that's ever been allowed to lay down on a stone anyway.
And these Indians took
me up to this graveyard, which was a pioneer's graveyard that came from the famine.
And the
first grave, I remember it because I just sat there and I was nearly in tears now.
The
first grave I saw was Sarah Connolly, native of Galway, died aged 18, 1846.
And I thought,
God help her.
And there's lizards running around this place and sort of rattle snakes
and things like that, and cougars.
You can hear these cougars coughing, the mountain
lions in the distance.
But the whole graveyard was full of people.
And I went through nearly
all the graves.
It was native of Sligo, native of Clare, native of Kildare, like everywhere.
_ And I got the story, I went into the library and found a story about them.
There were a
bunch of these Irish immigrants that come over during the famine.
And there was no Irish
need to play in New York.
And they couldn't get a place to stay because nobody wanted
them.
And so they all bunched together and decided to go west.
And there was about 200
of them traveled together west.
So when they got as far as Nevada, which was just a mountain
thing then, it was a Sierras, they were attacked by Indians.
So the story goes that this guy
got an arrow in his shoulder.
So three days later, they decided to take the arrow out
of him.
And they found out that the arrowhead was made out of a solid nugget of gold.
And
before this, they were going to have a good war with these Indians, you know.
So instead,
they made friends with them.
So the Indians showed them where to get the gold.
And they
cut it out of the rivers by shaking the moss.
So gold was trapped in the moss.
And that's where the 49 gold rush came from?
Yes.
And then you have the 49ers, the football team and the whole lot, they all sprung out
of Nevada.
And that's the 49 gold rush, the team and all that.
And it was the Paddy who
started all of that.
So when you go back into the graveyard, which I did, I finished the
last concert there and I went back up to the graveyard about midnight.
And I took out the
pipes and I played the Koolen, just a lament on the pipes.
And I said, great, fair play
to you.
So it's, you know, America's full of those places, you know, where the Irish have been.
_ Filmar, before you play a song for us, a good friend of yours and a good friend of
the industry has died over the weekend.
Jim Hanty looked after you for a couple of years.
Jim was great.
I did.
Jim, we owe, I suppose, we owe our whole life to Jim, our whole success
of your life to Jim.
Jim was one of the greatest PRO men of all time.
And he was a very funny
character.
And I actually went to see him a few weeks ago before he died.
And he sort
of would only last 10 minutes because he couldn't hold a conversation.
He used to get
tired very easy, you know.
And on my way out the door, he turned around to me, he says,
Finny.
I said, what, Jim?
He says, I was a good one, wasn't I?
I said, you were the best,
Jim.
He says, I made you, didn't I?
I said, you did, Jim.
I said, you made a lot more
artists in this country, too.
He was brilliant.
But Jim started with, he had brilliant ideas.
Like when you think about the 70s and 80s in this country, you know, like there was
bands, there was folk groups just sprouting up.
And for a folk group to get a number one
in Australia with an album called Sweet Sixteen like we did, that was Jim's work, you know.
And till we got to number 12 on top of the pops, you know, in England, that was Jim,
you know.
Well, that and a great song, though, it has to be said, and a great performance.
Well, Sweet Sixteen was a great idea.
It was Jim's idea because it was written by a Tipperary
man.
And my father actually used to sing the song.
And Jimmy Thornton wrote the song.
And
I was humming it one night.
And Jim says, God, you should record that.
But it was too
short.
So I wrote the banjo piece for it.
So I played the banjo, went in, produced it,
arranged it, sang it with the band, went off to America, came back, was number one.
I was
number 12, I think, in the British charts.
And then number one in Australia.
But then
the album came out, and that went number one.
But like we've had eight number one albums
in this country.
For a folk band, that's incredible, you know.
Listen to me, it would be an awful pity to have you here with that guitar and not have
you actually use it.
So any chance of a blast or something?
Yeah, well, it's a bit early in the morning to go heavy, you know what I mean?
And this
voice [Bb] is like a, when it gets going, it's a fairly_
So I was singing this one for
[Eb] all the new mammies out [Bb] there.
I remember going into the hospital to the comb, and my
wife gave birth to Finbar, our youngest baby.
He's nine now.
He's probably sitting watching
this.
Cringing.
No, he's not.
He loves it, actually.
He's a very good musician, too.
So I wrote this song, which is _ [F] called _ _ [Bb] Wondrous Love.
_ [F] _ _ _
[Bb] Born to us [F] as sunshine blessed [Bb] by angels, _ _ _ a perfect light [F] of hope with eyes [Bb] of innocence. _ _ _ _
[Eb] Wondrous love [Bb] and tenderness, _
[F] thank you for [Bb] this tiny bliss.
[Eb] I hear the cry [Bb] of [F] newborn
life reaching for the world. _
_ _ I thank you for [F] these feelings you [Bb] have shown me.
_ _ For you
I know [F] are hearts of all [Bb] who love me. _
_ _ _ [Eb] Wondrous [Bb] love and tenderness, I thank you [Ab] for_ _
_ [Eb] _ _ _ _ [N] _
of Irish music.
His singing and songwriting have been described as the gospel which he
has spread across the world.
He is of course Finnbarr Fury.
Very welcome to the show Finnbarr.
Good early morning to you.
Good early, it's very early isn't it?
And I believe you had a late one last night Mr.
Fury.
I did, we had a great crack yesterday.
Went down to the Paris court for a game of golf.
We played in the Pro-Am, the seniors golf tournament is on there.
And we played with
Paul Leonard, beautiful golfer.
Joe Dolan, Mick McCarthy and myself, that was the four
ball.
There was no golf, the crack was 90 all the way around, I can tell you that you
know.
We didn't win it.
Did you not?
No.
What's your handicap? _ _ _ _
We'll talk about that later on.
You know what that spells don't you?
Bandit, that's what that spells.
How are you?
I'm in good form at the moment.
Just back off a bit of a tour, a small tour that I was
doing out in the States.
I went down to Seattle, then down to Los Angeles, then into San Francisco,
Quebec.
And just taking it handy you know, just doing what I want to do.
I'm seven years
away from the band this year now.
And life has been perfect, absolutely great.
How much time are you spending on the road?
Not much, I do about three tours a year.
I did six weeks in Australia there before Christmas.
_ I did three weeks in Germany, Holland, Belgium.
And I spent _ then about four weeks in the States.
And that was it.
I think the States is brilliant because you can get everything, any time of the day or
night there, especially for a musician.
You were saying that you're doing some talks now in universities about Irish music and Irish culture.
Yeah, I do a lot of universities in the States.
It's one hour program in the middle of the
day, like two o'clock.
And then I do the concert that night, the proper gig that night.
But
I bring the pipes along and the flutes and that and the guitar, talk about who we are,
where the music came from.
I actually do a program on the Irish famine, where I play
the tunes, the melodies and the poetry that I've written for it.
I was telling you earlier on about, I was down in Nevada in California.
I did two concerts
in the, it's the oldest theatre in California, this place.
And there's terrific posters as
you walk in this place of Mark Twain and all of these, _ Lily Langtry and all these, you
see it only in Judge Roy Bean, if you saw the movie with Paul Newman.
And he's in love
with Lily Langtry.
Well, there's posters over there, still from the past.
And it was
a wonderful theatre to play.
And they came out from the woodwork, the people did.
There
was Indians came, there was cowboys came, everyone had some sort of Irish passion.
_ And I was brought up to a healing stone by these Indians.
And on the way up this hill,
a healing stone is where you lay down and you start, it's the shape of your body.
And
you lay down and you start to say a prayer to the sky.
And I think I'm the only white
fellow that's ever been allowed to lay down on a stone anyway.
And these Indians took
me up to this graveyard, which was a pioneer's graveyard that came from the famine.
And the
first grave, I remember it because I just sat there and I was nearly in tears now.
The
first grave I saw was Sarah Connolly, native of Galway, died aged 18, 1846.
And I thought,
God help her.
And there's lizards running around this place and sort of rattle snakes
and things like that, and cougars.
You can hear these cougars coughing, the mountain
lions in the distance.
But the whole graveyard was full of people.
And I went through nearly
all the graves.
It was native of Sligo, native of Clare, native of Kildare, like everywhere.
_ And I got the story, I went into the library and found a story about them.
There were a
bunch of these Irish immigrants that come over during the famine.
And there was no Irish
need to play in New York.
And they couldn't get a place to stay because nobody wanted
them.
And so they all bunched together and decided to go west.
And there was about 200
of them traveled together west.
So when they got as far as Nevada, which was just a mountain
thing then, it was a Sierras, they were attacked by Indians.
So the story goes that this guy
got an arrow in his shoulder.
So three days later, they decided to take the arrow out
of him.
And they found out that the arrowhead was made out of a solid nugget of gold.
And
before this, they were going to have a good war with these Indians, you know.
So instead,
they made friends with them.
So the Indians showed them where to get the gold.
And they
cut it out of the rivers by shaking the moss.
So gold was trapped in the moss.
And that's where the 49 gold rush came from?
Yes.
And then you have the 49ers, the football team and the whole lot, they all sprung out
of Nevada.
And that's the 49 gold rush, the team and all that.
And it was the Paddy who
started all of that.
So when you go back into the graveyard, which I did, I finished the
last concert there and I went back up to the graveyard about midnight.
And I took out the
pipes and I played the Koolen, just a lament on the pipes.
And I said, great, fair play
to you.
So it's, you know, America's full of those places, you know, where the Irish have been.
_ Filmar, before you play a song for us, a good friend of yours and a good friend of
the industry has died over the weekend.
Jim Hanty looked after you for a couple of years.
Jim was great.
I did.
Jim, we owe, I suppose, we owe our whole life to Jim, our whole success
of your life to Jim.
Jim was one of the greatest PRO men of all time.
And he was a very funny
character.
And I actually went to see him a few weeks ago before he died.
And he sort
of would only last 10 minutes because he couldn't hold a conversation.
He used to get
tired very easy, you know.
And on my way out the door, he turned around to me, he says,
Finny.
I said, what, Jim?
He says, I was a good one, wasn't I?
I said, you were the best,
Jim.
He says, I made you, didn't I?
I said, you did, Jim.
I said, you made a lot more
artists in this country, too.
He was brilliant.
But Jim started with, he had brilliant ideas.
Like when you think about the 70s and 80s in this country, you know, like there was
bands, there was folk groups just sprouting up.
And for a folk group to get a number one
in Australia with an album called Sweet Sixteen like we did, that was Jim's work, you know.
And till we got to number 12 on top of the pops, you know, in England, that was Jim,
you know.
Well, that and a great song, though, it has to be said, and a great performance.
Well, Sweet Sixteen was a great idea.
It was Jim's idea because it was written by a Tipperary
man.
And my father actually used to sing the song.
And Jimmy Thornton wrote the song.
And
I was humming it one night.
And Jim says, God, you should record that.
But it was too
short.
So I wrote the banjo piece for it.
So I played the banjo, went in, produced it,
arranged it, sang it with the band, went off to America, came back, was number one.
I was
number 12, I think, in the British charts.
And then number one in Australia.
But then
the album came out, and that went number one.
But like we've had eight number one albums
in this country.
For a folk band, that's incredible, you know.
Listen to me, it would be an awful pity to have you here with that guitar and not have
you actually use it.
So any chance of a blast or something?
Yeah, well, it's a bit early in the morning to go heavy, you know what I mean?
And this
voice [Bb] is like a, when it gets going, it's a fairly_
So I was singing this one for
[Eb] all the new mammies out [Bb] there.
I remember going into the hospital to the comb, and my
wife gave birth to Finbar, our youngest baby.
He's nine now.
He's probably sitting watching
this.
Cringing.
No, he's not.
He loves it, actually.
He's a very good musician, too.
So I wrote this song, which is _ [F] called _ _ [Bb] Wondrous Love.
_ [F] _ _ _
[Bb] Born to us [F] as sunshine blessed [Bb] by angels, _ _ _ a perfect light [F] of hope with eyes [Bb] of innocence. _ _ _ _
[Eb] Wondrous love [Bb] and tenderness, _
[F] thank you for [Bb] this tiny bliss.
[Eb] I hear the cry [Bb] of [F] newborn
life reaching for the world. _
_ _ I thank you for [F] these feelings you [Bb] have shown me.
_ _ For you
I know [F] are hearts of all [Bb] who love me. _
_ _ _ [Eb] Wondrous [Bb] love and tenderness, I thank you [Ab] for_ _
_ [Eb] _ _ _ _ [N] _