Irish sibling band The Corrigan Brothers, who first came to international attention with their 2008 internet smash hit “There’s No-one As Irish as Barak Obama” are back and this time with an homage to the popular ITV Series Downton Abbey. The song itself could serve a number of purposes. Should you wish to partake in workplace conversation with colleagues who discuss little other than this series, the song offers you a breakdown of events to date. Now, as well as simply smiling and nodding you can also add in statements like “and what about Lady Mary’s chequered past?” in complete confidence. The three minutes you spend watching this video could be the most useful team building exercise for you to date. Alternatively, if you feel you want to watch the next series of Downton Abbey, but haven’t watched it to date, this music video could be the solution to your problems. Of course, if you have just bought the box set and are looking forward to enjoying all the twists and turns of events at the Abbey then perhaps save the video for another day…
Ger Corrigan took some time out from his busy schedule to talk to Newsnibbles about this latest release.
We are an Irish Band called the Corrigan Brothers and have been together in
various formats for over twenty years. In 2008 we got signed to Decca and
Universal after releasing a home recording of a song we had written about
Barack Obama’s Irish origins called “There’s no one as Irish as Barack
Obama”. This song went viral all over the internet and saw us chart in ten
countries and make over forty TV appearances as well as getting invited to
perform at the President’s inauguration. It also has over seven million
youtube hits in different postings and a cover version of it has over one
million you tube hits. In MAY 2011 President Obama visited Ireland and spoke
about us and the song in his Dublin speech to the Irish nation. We remain
the only band and song ever mentioned in A US President’s speech.
It is not intimidating as we had been writing humorous songs for years. We
view the success of the Obama song as being in the right place at the right
time and capturing a moment in time. There was an appetite for something
like it at the time. If you can do it once then you can do it again and we
will continue to write topical humorous songs. Recently we released a song
about the Einstein/Neutrino science question where Einstein’s theory is
being questioned and we featured in the New York Times and the New Scientist
magazine. We have had lots of hits since but the scale of the Obama song was
huge. Harvard University have published a paper on it and the New Yorker
Magazine credit the song with “Internationalising Barack Obama” and
contributing to his election success. So it is a hard act to follow. That
song has seen us feature on the NBC Today show three times-helped us meet
and get to know all sorts of people the most enjoyable of which for me was
dinner with Kevin Spacey, it has seen us sign to Jonathan Shalit’s ROAR
GLOBAL talent agency, it has seen us be feted by twenty Decca record
executives in eight avenue New York and it has allowed us access to so many
new adventures in Music.
My wife introduced me to the show this year so I quickly watched the box set
and caught up with it. I think it is wonderful. It has the wonderful
master/servant dynamic with lots of love interests and the evil O’Brien and
Thomas scheming and keeping us all on edge. The characters have dignity and
respect and seem to genuinely care about each other and there is an
overarching humanity about it all. Everyone we spoke to was watching it so
we decided that it merits a song- hence “It’s all going down in Downton
Abbey”. We think we captured the spirit and the story and the underlying
humour reasonably well. We adore Maggie Smith the Dowager Countess and our
ambition is to have her perform the song live with us!
Plenty- ha ha…….we have used it quite a lot- the inappropriate ones
would not merit printing but it is a very versatile word- future songs may
include the rhyming with Portaloo, Vindaloo or Victoria Beckam’s shoe!
I love the story about the Slivers of Einstein’s brain on display. It is
really quirky and interesting. We could easily set that one to music!Tooraloo Torraloo
Torraloo it’s insane
They’re displaying the fragments
of old Albert’s brainYou can’t believe it
Some say it’s a shame
They’re showin off bits
Of Old Albert’s brain
Some say it’s an outrage
Some say it’s a crime
Displaying the parts
Of Albert EinsteinTooraloo Tooraloo
Torraloo it’s insane
They’re displaying the fragments
Of old Albert’s brain
I stand for it- I was against it until we got a beautiful King Charles
(Holly) and my daughter Aoife started buying her clothes. The most fetching
item being a studded leather jacket. It gave Holly a new menace and great
street cred!!!!!
We are currently recording our second album and preparing for a tour of the
USA in April 2011, but most importantly we await the next season of Downton
Abbey. The wonderful Mr Bates surely can’t have murdered his wife? Can lady
Edith stay on the shelf forever? And of course will cousin Matthew and Lady
Mary finally consummate their passion and will Mathew survive the encounter,
unlike the poor Turkish chap who found Lady Mary to be a lethal lover!
We would like to thank Ger for talking to us. If we’ve done this right you should be able to view the “It’s All Going Down at Downton Abbey” below – if not you’ll have to Google it…
