In this song, the main characters are Axl and Captain Farrell, and scene is set in Cork and Kerry mountains. The first verse, as it's often the case in many songs, introduces the setting and main characters to the listener. For ease of analysis, I'll call this person Axl Rose, no relation to the idiot who brought down G'N'R ( yes, I completely randomly chose than name out of a 1000 givens on a website ). It's definitely a middle-aged man as we'll soon see. Song is written from the first person's point of view, and there's no indication who that might be. Furthermore, not fully knowing such aspects isn't an impediment for understanding the meaning of the song, which I will analyze right now. Analyzing the historical significance of each of these aspects is, I believe, unnecessary since there's no definitive link to their origins. If you look into the lyrics of the songs, it's consists of references to places, persons and events.
It's fair to say that it was Metallica who popularized the song to a point where it's interesting enough for me to analyze. Instead of attempting to retrace its history, I'll just focus on the work of Metallica, who's version is based on the cover of Thin Lizzy. Nevertheless, it has become quite popular over years due to extensive cover versions made by some reputable bands, namely Metallica. Metallica's version of "Whiskey in the Jar" from Garage Inc.įamous Iris song, "Whiskey in the Jar" has an untraceable origin, that is, the primary song writer and and year of its release is unknown.