Tell Me Ma

“Tell Me Ma”, was featured on National Public Radio’s Second Stage. As NPR put it: “Beatnik Turtle is a remarkably prolific and fiercely independent rock group based in Chicago. The eight-piece band includes a full horn section and has been making music for the past 11 years. Beatnik Turtle spent all of 2007 releasing a new song every day through its Web site. With that kind of output, it was relatively easy for the band to produce a full album in just one month as part of the RPM Challenge. The result is a collection of Irish drinking songs called Sham Rock.

This is the second year Beatnik Turtle has participated in the RPM Challenge. For this year’s album, its members decided to reinvent traditional Irish folk songs. For example, “Tell Me Ma”, was originally a children’s song.

“It seemed the best candidate for a pop-rock treatment,” Beatnik Turtle’s Jason Feehan says. “The original song has its roots as an Irish children’s song — you know, one of those playground sing-alongs. However, we opted to rock it up, building it off an active guitar line. From there, we added some thick harmonies and horns.” (NPR.org, April 3, 2008).