10 April 1971
Knocking Marc Bolan briefly off the Irish number one spot: a welder from Cork, an actual metal guru. Some more chopping and changing saw Lynn Anderson’s ‘Rose Garden’ and T. Rex’s ‘Hot Love’ each reclaim the top bunk, before ‘When We Were Young’ by Pat Lynch and The Airchords vanquished both again to spend another four weeks at number one in Ireland during May 1971. Dramatic times at the top of the Irish charts.
You may recall from their previous Irish chart-topper, 1967’s rural marriage-arranging ditty ‘Treat Me Daughter Kindly’ with its eye-wateringly risqué pronunciation of the word “country”, that The Airchords were formed by members of the Irish Air Corps – like Top Gun, but everyone’s called Goose. In shades of another classic ’80s movie, Lynch had been a welder by day, singer by night. Post-showbiz, he taught welding at Cork RTC, which later became Cork IT and is now part of Munster Technological University, to a new generation of aspiring dancers.
Does that sort of action and drama, along with being a chart rival of Marc Bolan, rub off on ‘When We Were Young’? It does not. The Engelbert-style late-’60s cabaret sentimentality tips us off that this was written by Les Reed and Barry Mason, the sperm donors behind schmaltzy chart-toppers like ‘Delilah’, ‘The Last Waltz’ and ‘I Pretend’. Lynch’s mild croon, while occasionally brushing the outermost fringes of Roy Orbison’s lonesome pine, doesn’t have the oomph of Engelbert or Tom Jones. The rudimentary acoustic guitar strumming belies a ’60s showband now unsure what to do with its hands. Also, it’s about being old people.
Lynch and The Airchords had actually folded up their tent before ‘When We Were Young’ went to number one, but other Irish showbands and their singers persist well into the ’70s; we’ll even see them here at the top of the charts. How exactly do they adapt to the ’70s? Their coping mechanisms will include West End musical numbers, Eurovision entries, post-Bloody-Sunday balladry, and even a Christmas carol. None of it will involve trying to sound like T. Rex, which is probably for the best.
