so on christmas night we were hanging around my parent's house in the dark (since the power had gone out), and my father and cousin and one of my cousin's friend's father's (yeah, we get a strange crowd at my house around the holiday's) were playing old songs on their guitars and everyone was singing along...
i was particularly amused when we got to a traditional irish song called "A Man You Don't Meet Every Day" (probably best known these days because The Pogues sing a version of it), which has a line in it that always seemed kind of off to me...
"I took out my dog, and him I did shoot, All down in the County Kildare."
my cousin mentioned that he had heard it sung differently, as:
"I took out my dog and my gun for to shoot, All down in the County Kildare."
so i looked around on the web, and all the web sites i found with lyrics seemed split 50/50. half of them have the guy taking his dog out and shooting him, and half of them have him taking his dog out and going hunting.
i just found it amusing how the wording of a traditional song can be altered over time. which way was the original? who decided to sing it slightly differently?
in any case, it was a fun night. we went through all the old songs we sing at family gatherings, and amber's father introduced us to a bunch of songs i hadn't heard before. apparently he worked his way through college playing the guitar in bars.
