Dropkick Murphys – “Mick Jones Nicked My Pudding” & “James Connolly” (Black 47 Cover)
It’s been an eventful few months for Dropkick Murphys, the durable Boston Celtic punk warriors. In January, the band released a two-song single, pairing their new rager “Smash Shit Up” with a cover of singer-songwriter Gerry Cinnamon’s “The Bonny.” As of now, the band is still supposed to head out on a spring co-headlining tour with Rancid, though it’s now virtually impossible to believe that this will happen as planned. The band already had to livestream their traditional St. Patrick’s Day Boston show, since they couldn’t play in front of an audience. And yesterday, they put another two-song single into the world.
On their latest release, Dropkick Murphys follow the same basic format as they used with “Smash Shit Up” and “The Bonny”: One fun and silly original track, one cover of a more grave and serious song. In this case, the silly original is extremely silly. It’s called “Mick Jones Ate My Pudding,” and the title is not a metaphor. It’s really about the feeling of seeing the guy from the Clash and Big Audio Dynamite eating a dessert that was supposed to be yours: “Resentment it’s a killer, that’s all you gotta know/ To forgive a living legend is the only way to go/ But he really wasn’t sorry, I may have seen him laugh/ As he ate the tasty treat on my behalf.”
As for the other song, it’s a fired-up take on “James Connolly,” a 1991 song from Black 47, the New York-based Celtic rock band. The song is an ode to the titular figure, a socialist leader in early-20th-century Ireland. Dropkick Murphys transform it into a fired-up rager that should make a significantly less embarrassing singalong than “Mick Jones Ate My Pudding.” Listen to both of the new Murphys songs below.
You can get both songs right now at the Dropkick Murphys’ Bandcamp.