Songs Yr Pilgrim Loves: Dropkick Murphys, "Workers Song"

We play and practice this, alone and in sekrit, we do, on our solitary single so lonesome guitar, though the studio version has like *three* guitars, pretty sure, and Bass and Drums and an Entire Fucking Chorus of Bagpipes like in this live performance, which has FUCKING BAGPIPES AND KILTS TOO, PEOPLE, we swear, happy and delirious, so watch it, but we are only one single humble musician who can only play one guitar at a time, and can only sing solo, and cannot do any three-part backing vocals on chorus, even though this song is easily within our practiced first-tenor range, not like the cool octave skips of Frightened Rabbit's Keep Yourself Warm, which are a stretch for us but we always try because Love That Tune, our vocal range being similar to Amy Ray's of Indigo Girls, which for the tune (Workers Song) we remember that we were talking about requires no straining for second-soprano David Crosby falsetto required, though we Really Wish We Could Do That, and we are impossible dreamers also though we have only two guitars between us and No Bagpipes At All, nor even a single kilt anywhere that we can find alas and yet we play practice on because love and stuff because that is what we do because we are just lame like that The End. 

Anyways, this song is so fucking cool rocking loud, and of a genre that we call "Heavy Metal Celtic."

Power chords (Root-Fifth-[Octave optional]) are of course a staple of rock, not just metal, with palm-mute and cranked-up amplification, as used adroitly here.

What makes this song very Celtic (apart from The Bagpipes Duh) is the Drone Note, used throughout. It's the Tonic, sounded through all three chords: Tonic (the root, no inversion), Fourth (second inversion), and even the Fifth, (not used here very much) where it creates a cool dissonance, because its third is the leading tone, just a chromatic step away from the root.

In this song's arrangement, the drone note shows up in the I to IV chord change, where the B-flat is played in the tonic, and then stays there steady as the bottom note of the IV chord, voiced in the second inversion.

You can hear the tonic drone note in the guitar parts, 'specially in the chorus, with the rapid staccato bouncing from leading-tone to tonic, in the I-chord and the IV-Chord. Easy in this song because B-flat. 

And now we shall RSN (real soon now) Shut The Fuck Up, because we sincerely want y'all to listen. But srsly, y'all: We LUVS This Shit. Didja notice?

Here is a good link for the song. And this one has lyrics, so's y'all can sing along, and rememberize the lyrics, which we think you should, and dance and bounce rhythmically too, most indecorously also, the best you can muster. 

Chords and tabs for fellow guitarists here. (Easy: B-flat: I, IV, V. Got it. But the solo: very Nice To Have.)