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Its Me

Much more useful to an understanding of the Irish rock scene is Roddy Doyle' s comic novel The Commitments, which dissects the brief poignant career of a fictional Dubliner soul-revival band of the same name. The Commitments latch on to the soul music of Sam Cooke and Otis Redding because it sounds more "real" than what they hear in the local pubs and on the radio, and with the fanaticism of the newly converted (much like U2 in the United States during the Rattle and Hum sessions) they succeed marvelously, for example altering James Brown's

"Night Train" so that the listed cities make sense on their island. "No one laughed," Doyle writes of one performance. "It wasn't funny. It was true." Of course the next second the band members are trading insults. At the end of the novel, the few members who haven't scattered are organizing a country-punk unit. They are just as committed to the new sound as they were to the old and their

infatuation is contagious. They truly love their new to...

Posted by: Sylvia Schiavoni

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