In 1972, the Irish rock band Thin Lizzy were two albums in and neither had set the world alight. They needed a hit — something different, something fresh. Then one afternoon, during a break from rehearsing in a room above a pub in London’s King’s Cross, frontman Phil Lynott started fooling around, singing a traditional Irish ballad he knew from the pubs of Dublin. The other two band members, guitarist Eric Bell and drummer Brian Downey, joined in.
“Whiskey in the Jar” is about a highwayman. The details vary but the gist is that the outlaw narrator robs a military man and takes home the booty to his love who promptly betrays him. Our hero ends up in prison.
Its precise origins are unclear but it might have been inspired by the exploits of Patrick Fleming, a highwayman executed in Dublin in 1650. The American musicologist Alan Lomax even speculated — and it is pure speculation — that John Gay wrote The Beggar’s Opera in 1728 after hearing a version of it. The earliest copy held in the Bodleian Library’s collection of broadside ballads dates from around 1840. Folk music researcher Steve Gardham dates a copy in the Madden collection at circa 1800.
So when The Dubliners, Peter, Paul and Mary, The Seekers and American folk group The Highwaymen all recorded “Whiskey in the Jar” in the 1960s, the song was at least a century and a half old, and possibly much older.
Despite the fact that it could hardly be described as new, Thin Lizzy’s manager liked the sound of the version they rattled off that afternoon in the pub. The band, who didn’t really want to be associated with traditional Irish music, reluctantly agreed to record it.
Bell came up with an introduction based on a bagpipe part he’d heard on a Chieftains number, an earworm riff repeated throughout the song, and a jaunty trad-tinged guitar solo.
The lyrics were different to those of earlier recorded versions too. Usually, when the authorities arrive to arrest the unnamed protagonist, he reaches for his pistols, only to find they have been either removed or sabotaged by his treacherous lover. In Lizzy’s version, he lets Captain Farrell have it “with both barrels”.
The band wanted it be a B-side but their label, Decca, insisted it was an A-side. Released in November 1972, it reached number one in Ireland and stayed in the charts for 17 weeks, eventually made the top 10 in the UK and charted in several European countries. If it didn’t exactly transform Thin Lizzy’s fortunes, it certainly gave them a much-needed shot in the arm, despite the fact that they grew to hate it.
Their version became the one upon which most subsequent covers were based. The most notable is the hectic interpretation by Metallica, which appeared on their 1998 covers album Garage, Inc. It was released as a single and the video depicts a debauched house party attended by many scantily clad women. The song bagged them a Grammy.
The Dubliners re-recorded “Whiskey in the Jar” — a high-tempo rendition — with The Pogues in 1990. The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia recorded an acoustic version with David Grisman for their folk and country album Shady Grove and the following day he taught it to the Dead while they were in the studio. A recording of their charmingly ragged rehearsal is on the So Many Roads box set, along with a band discussion about it during which Garcia enthuses about this “cool song”.
Pulp’s cover appeared on a Childline charity compilation album in 1996. The nonsense line in the chorus rendered as “whack fol de daddy-o” in traditional versions and as “whack for my daddy-o” by Thin Lizzy here becomes “wept for my daddy-o”.
Belle and Sebastian put out “Whiskey in the Jar” as the B-side of a single in 2006. (Co-founder Stuart Murdoch is a Lizzy fan and the supposedly fey indie outfit also have a thunderous cover of Lizzy’s anthemic “The Boys Are Back in Town”).
There are many, many versions. In fact, for her masters thesis, Dana DeVlieger, a music lecturer at the University of Delaware, listened to an astonishing 398 different recordings in a variety of genres by artists from all over the world.
Her favourite? “The version that stands out most in my mind was what I would call the most absurd. It is by a band called Lack of Limits and throughout the song the band changes musical styles to great comedic effect.”
Whatever its precise age, “Whiskey in the Jar” shows no signs of getting old.
What are your memories of ‘Whiskey in the Jar’? Let us know in the comments section below.
‘The Life of a Song Volume 2: The fascinating stories behind 50 more of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Brewer’s.
Music credits: Decca — Pop; Parlophone UK; Warner Records; Rescue; Virgin EMI; WM UK; Acoustic Disc; UMC (Universal Music Catalogue); emphase records
Picture credit: Jorgen Angel/Redferns