Drunken Lullabies is the second studio release from the Flogging Molly, a six man Irish punk band from-- where else?-- L.A.. Released in the summer of 2002, it was well-received by both critics and die-hard fans alike.

The songs are as follows:

  Drunken Lullabies
  What's Left of the Flag
  May the Living Be Dead (In Our Wake)
  If I Ever Leave This World Alive
  The Kilburn High Road
  Rebels of the Sacred Heart
  Swagger
  Cruel Mistress
  Death Valley Queen
  Another Bag of Bricks
  The Rare Ould Times
  The Son Never Shines (On Closed Doors)


Drunken Lullabies is a fine, highly coherent album, especially when compared to the band's debut, Swagger. While there isn't anything on it that can exactly match the enthusiam or insane catchiness of "Salty Dog," most of the up-beat numbers (the title track, "What's Left of the Flag," and "Rebels of the Sacred Heart") can hold their own pretty damn well. There are also a number of slower songs-- not quite ballads, but also not running at the furious pace of the rest of the album-- that are enjoyable. ("The Rare Ould Times," "Death Valley Queen") While there are a few quirky tracks -- the strange, uncharacteristic, almost-Arabic beat to "Another Bag of Bricks," for instance-- that you may want to skip after the first listen, Drunken Lullabies is an album well worth listening to again and again. (And again, and again, while standing in front of your shrine to Dave King-- er, did I say that part out loud? Please ignore the drooling fangirl behind the curtain.)
(As a side note, the lead singer on the sea chanty, "Cruel Mistress," is actually Nathen Maxwell, the bassist, not Dave King, everyone's favorite drunken Irish expatriate.)

And now the lyrics to the title (edited to fit E2 copyright standards) song:

Must it take a life for hateful eyes
To glisten once again
Five hundred years like Gelignite
Have blown us all to hell
What savior rests while on his cross we die
Forgotten freedom burns
Has the Shepherd led his lambs astray
To the bigot and the gun

Must it take a life for hateful lies
To glisten once again
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies

I watch and stare as Roisin's eyes
Turn a darker shade of red
And the bullet with this sniper lie
In their bloody gutless cell
Must we starve on crumbs from long ago
Through bars these men made steel
Is it a great or little thing we fought
Knelt the conscience blessed to kill

Ah, but maybe it's the way we're taught
Or maybe it's the way we fought
But a smile never grins without tears to begin
For each kiss is a cry we all lost
Though nothing is left to gain
But for the banshee that stole the grave
Cause we find ourselves in the same old mess
Singin' drunken lullabies
...

*all lyrics copyright Flogging Molly.

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