What came first, Irish rebels or zombie cows?
This is a music based question, I have been curious about this for a while. These two songs, Ghost Riders in the Sky by Johnny Cash, and Up the Ra performed by various Irish rebel type artists. They both have the same tune. I understand one merely has to look up the dates for both songs in order to determinate who came up with the tune first.
However there are some complications. Apparently Johnny Cash said he did not invent this song, he said that his grandfather learned it from a cowboy when he was a boy.
Ireland, or most of it anyway became a free place in 1921 I believe, so I assume some rebel songs such as Up the Ra existed before that war. So…what the hell came first? Who came up with that tune and what is the story behind all this?
Ghost Riders in the Sky
Up the Ra
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5 Answers
Up the RA is a slang term reference the IRA which started in 1916. Johnny Cash’s grandfather was born in 1852 and I imagine any song he heard as a boy was heard 50 years before Up the Ra was ever sung.
“Ooh Ah Up the Ra” was written for the 100th anniversary of Celtic Football Club in 1987. Wikipedia says the tune is similar to Spancil Hill an old Irish song but I can’t hear any resemblance.
Both “Up the Ra” and “Ghostriders” share melodic elements with the old Irish song “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye”, which has a story line that reaches back at least two centuries, to the Irish conscripts who served in the Kandyan wars of Sri Lanka (at that time Ceylon) around 1795–1815.
As far as zombie cattle, I seem to remember a story folk tale about King Brian Boru (somewhere around 950 CE) and undead cattle!
@flutherother Hm, neither can I. Same for the Johnny song @Strauss. I know it, listened to it quite a bit…aroo…aroo haha. Although the tune is one I assume to be ancient as hell as I’ve heard it many times in different things, it doesn’t seem much at all like Ra/Cows tune.
In fact the Johnny tune is so…universal? I can’t even remember one specific time where else I’ve heard it besides this song, but I know I have.
@Berserker The Spancil melody, although different from Ghostriders/Johnny, shows up regularly in Irish/Scots/Gaelic collections, as well as Appalachian and “Old-Timey” folk songs. It’s not unusual for an ancient melody like that to accompany several sets of lyrics from otherwise disparate sources.
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