YMMV / Dropkick Murphys

• Broken Base: Sort of a minor and strange version, considering the band's past albums. When they released the pro-union song "Take 'Em Down", some fans said they didn't like the band's new "political direction". Other fans however, not only embraced the song but let the angry fans go.
• Covered Up: "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" and "Gonna Be A Blackout Tonight" are Woody Guthrie songs. Both are interesting examples of this because Guthrie never recorded either song. (He left behind dozens of lyrics for unrecorded songs, and many of them had already appeared on Wilco and Billy Bragg's Mermaid Avenue albums in the early 2000's)
  • An entire album of previously-unrecorded Guthrie lyrics was later released on their 2022 album This Machine Still Kills Fascists, itself a reference to a slogan Guthrie had affixed to a sticker on his guitar.
• Growing the Beard: sometime after Al Barr became the vocalist the band started to blend their genres better, and got a bit more complex musically. Blackout seems to be the point most people pick.
• Harsher in Hindsight: "Pipebomb on Landsdowne", after the marathon bombing.
• Heartwarming Moments: "L-EE-B-O-Y", a song about how awesome their new bagpiper is. For added heartwarming, Lee had no idea the song was about him when he recorded his pipes; once the music video was complete, the band let the cat out of the bag in a Zoom meeting.
• Signature Song: "Tessie" became one for the Red Sox. "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" became one for Boston sports teams in general. "The State of Massachusetts" is also well known.
• Tear Jerker:
  • "Fields of Athenry," a traditional Irish song about a young man being sent to Australia for theft after stealing food to prevent his children from starving during the Potato Famine.
  • "Green Fields of France," sung from the POV of a tourist speaking to the grave of an Irish soldier killed in WWI.
  • "Broken Hymns" tells about a soldier in the American Civil War killed at the Battle of Shiloh. The lyrics don’t specify if he fought for the North or South, and the mention of his mother in Brighton could refer to towns in Massachusetts, New York, or South Carolina. This is likely intentional, as it could refer to both sides.
  • "4-15-13" commemorates the victims of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

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