The Guggenheim Grotto – “Fee Da Da Dee” (Stream)

You’ve almost certainly got a playlist ready and raring to go populated with Flogging Molly, Dropkick Murphys and the Tossers. Good for you! But maybe you could augment your lineup of irish-sounding songs with one from a band that’s, y’know, actually Irish.

Dublin-based duo the Guggenheim Grotto (now defunct and reformed as Storyman to reflect a change in style) was a fantastic indie pop/folk outfit. Their finest work was the 2009 album Happy the Man, which topped out the iTunes folk chart in the US. Hence the success of their single “Fee Da Da Dee”, a gorgeous, electro-pop tune with a flair of Irishness to pair with your green beer this evening.

Their signature acoustic picking is omnipresent, even when drowned out by thick, bloopy synth. It cuts through in the bridge along with a soaring fiddle. The vocalizations that lend the song its title also seem to have a bit of brogue color to them. But what really sets this song above the rest of the indie folk set is the playfully passionate, romantic lyric. How can you not love a song that tells you that “Our hearts are tigers chasing tigerness / And me, and me, I think I’m getting it.”

If you get sick of cut-time punk rock and electric violin this evening, play some of this. It’ll be a lovely change of pace without sacrificing the evening’s inherent Irishness. Or, if you’re having a quiet St. Patrick’s Day with a lovely lad or lass, this song — and more so its ridiculously-sexy album-mate “Her Beautiful Ideas”

— will set the tone nicely.