St. Patrick's Day, the celebration of all things Irish, was last week, and Ireland has a long and proud musical tradition.
Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ya - sometimes also know as Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye - is a traditional Irish anti-war song from the early-to-mid 19th century.
The song tells the story of an Irish woman meeting a wounded soldier on the road to Athy, in County Kildare. She realizes he is her former lover, and father of her illegitimate child, who ran away to join the British Army to fight in the Kandyan War in what is now Sri Lanka.
The song is sad and angry, and even has a few moments of gallows humour, but makes a point still valid today about the heavy price of war. For every soldier killed in battle, many more are wounded.
Some are left with permanent, life-altering physical and psychological injuries like the titular character in the song.
The Massachusetts Celtic punk band Dropkick Murphys did a great, hard-driving version of the song on their 2007 album The Meanest of Times.
The video for the Dropkick Murphys version is online here: https://youtu.be/QEUmJR3-Um8
For a more traditional style, The Irish Rovers also do a fine version, which can be heard online here: https://youtu.be/wFUTHcjiZGo.
