22 March 1996
I haven’t found any independent source online to substantiate the widely-stated claim that the BBC banned Richie Kavanagh’s ‘Aon Focal Eile’. The sole basis for it seems to be a 1997 RTÉ interview in which Richie suggests a London radio producer told him this. What we can be sure of is that ‘Aon Focal Eile’ is indeed a lengthy and laboured pun on the world’s favourite four-letter f-word, since other jewels of the Richie Kavanagh songbook include ‘Dick On Her Mind’ and ‘Micky’s Bucking Ass’. Basically, ‘Aon Focal Eile’ was an innuendo-laden comedy song in the tradition of English end-of-the-pier ditties like George Formby’s ‘With My Little Stick Of Blackpool Rock’.
We can also be sure of the fact that in Ireland in 1996 ‘Aon Focal Eile’ was a colossal pop-cultural hit. Not only was Richie Kavanagh’s original at number one for seven weeks, keeping ‘Firestarter’ and ‘Return Of The Mack’ off our top spot, but a rival faction called the Noel Furlong Family Group had a top ten hit with their own version of it at exactly the same time. We can’t question the popularity of a song that occupies two top ten spots in the same week’s Irish singles chart, but can we explain it?
‘Aon Focal Eile’ had precedent. In 1979 another accordion-toting stage culchie, Brendan Shine, scored a huge-selling number one for five weeks with the similar mild sauce of ‘Do You Want Your Old Lobby Washed Down?’, whose title was innuendo for a penniless rural female tenant of advanced years offering to pay the landlord their monthly rent by—nudge-nudge wink-wink—other means. Both songs and their singers are on the trad Irish céilí and singalong wing of country & Irish, still a popular and lucrative genre today: every local radio station with a rural catchment area has at least one weekly show devoted to it. Both had a certain TV-ready appeal: the twinkly-eyed Shine had his own series on RTÉ during the ’80s, and on-stage Kavanagh dressed like a children’s entertainer. (By contrast, you’ll find photos on Richie’s own website of him in a suit and neat hair, looking like a bank manager.)
Still, there are a few particular factors we can suggest for the reign of ‘Aon Focal Eile’. The feel-good post-Italia-’90 vibe saw the emergence of The Saw Doctors and the stage culchie: a younger, craic-based, more irreverent audience beyond the Pale. Added to that, the céilí accordion appealed to older folks and the school-based primary-coloured sound to their grandkids. So, all ages could enjoy Richie’s novelty-record charms. And let’s not forget that there were also ’90s stage Dub equivalents in ‘Give It A Lash Jack’ and the output of Dustin. I’m only surprised there haven’t been more Irish number ones like this.
What’s distinctive about Richie Kavanagh’s record compared to cover versions is its weirdness. Richie’s stage show, and this record, involved him and an invisible or implied sidekick called Johnny whom he voiced out of the side of his mouth. So, ‘Aon Focal Eile’, like many of Richie Kavanagh’s songs, is a duet between Richie and Johnny. Personally, I think all our pop stars should have weirdness attached; let’s even make it mandatory for having a number one. That said, as pop alter egos go, Richie’s Johnny is no Ziggy Stardust.
I can take or leave its innate tweeness and dumb innuendo, which just aren’t my thing, but ultimately what grates most for me about ‘Aon Focal Eile’ is that stage culchie affectation. Maybe it’s a localised Carlow thing but I’ve never heard anyone pronouncing ‘seat’ as ‘sate’. Also, while the Furlongs deliver their version as sepia-tinted nostalgia for rote learning and corporal punishment, Richie’s original goes all-in on the I’m-a-big-thicko routine, and I hate that anti-smart stuff. If you think that’s just the product of a bygone Irish national inferiority complex, remember that the rest of the world has lately gone big for alternative facts, ‘fake news’, and having enough of experts. Big men with strange hair who play dumb: always at it.
