Daniel O’Donnell – Four Track EP

29 August 1987

Take the kitsch of country & Irish, multiply it by the campy simpering of Daniel O’Donnell, and you get… well, a whole lot of campy, simpering kitsch really. Other male singers working the country & Irish scene, most notably Nathan Carter, have since tried to follow Daniel’s blueprint of a junior infant singing Patsy Cline to doting grannies, but without an nth of the success. Their problem is that Daniel is famed and loved for being wee Daniel; his music is just a pretext. The 2021 video for ‘Down At The Lah Di Dah’ was a minor sensation because of the sight of Daniel trying a different sort of kitsch; the song itself wasn’t even a hit. Anyway, that’s the mystery wrapped in an enigma dressed in a first holy communion suit that is Daniel O’Donnell, forever the Ireland’s Own darling young one.

That the first of Daniel’s two Irish number ones is effectively a nameless EP is indicative of how he doesn’t really have a signature song or blockbusting hit. The track that I recall getting most airplay from these four is ‘Take Good Care Of Her’, a dreary heartbreak ballad recorded by Elvis in 1974 and similar in lovelorn-loser vibe to Eileen Reid’s ‘I Gave My Wedding Dress Away’ and Dickie Rock’s chart-topping ‘Wishing It Was You’. ‘Summertime In Ireland’ is an uptempo two-step country ditty which features Daniel “strolling through the hedgerows” like the Homer Simpson hedge meme, while ‘My Side Of The Road’ is sentimental waltz-time schmaltz. Final track ‘I Wonder Where You Are Tonight’ mixes the maudlin heartbreak, two-step tempo and sentimental schmaltz of the other three tracks. Daniel O’Donnell, a smooth and squeaky-clean perineum between the ’60s showbands and today’s country & Irish lads, is proof that the biggest and most enduring influence on Irish popular music is Jim Reeves.