Boom!

While reading “Crime in America,” Estes Kefauver’s account of the organized crime hearings, several passages caught my eye. One such passage was in the chapter on Louisiana, where Kefauver described the questioning of shamelessly corrupt Jefferson Parish sheriff Frank J. “King” Clancy. The sheriff freely admitted that he allowed casinos to operate in his parish, on the grounds that… they provided jobs for the elderly and underprivileged. (Several of the casinos were so close to Clancy’s office, Kefauver snarked, that “the sheriff could have stood on the courthouse steps and hit any one of these enterprises by throwing his junior-sized ten-gallon hat real hard.”)

Clancy further admitted that he had given permission to known gangsters to open their establishments, which led to this exchange with the committee’s associate Counsel, Downey Rice:

Q. In other words, what they say about King Clancy is true – they came to King Clancy and got the okay; is that a fair statement?

A. I would not put it in that term – “King” Clancy..,

Q. And when Clancy lowers the boom and says close, they close?

A. That is right; they close.

“Crime in America,” p. 185

By the end of his testimony, Sheriff Clancy pledged that he would try actually enforcing the law and shutting down the casinos in Jefferson Parish. He wasted no time keeping his promise, either:

As a matter of historical fact, he telephoned his office from Washington at 3 P.M, and at 6 P.M. it was reported back to him the Jefferson Parish dives were closed. Clancy had lowered the boom.

“Crime in America,” p. 187

What caught my eye about these passages was the phrase about Clancy lowering the boom. I couldn’t help thinking I’d heard it before somewhere.

So I googled it, and sure enough, “Clancy Lowered the Boom” was the title of a song! Written by Hy Heath and Johnny Lange in 1947, the song was essentially a running repetition of the stereotype of the Irish as hair-trigger rageaholics. Each verse is a vignette describing a situation that ends with Clancy throwing hands. The chorus gives you a sense of what we’re dealing with here:

Oh, that Clancy! Oh, that Clancy!
Whenever they got his Irish up
Clancy lowered the boom!

Dennis Day, an Irish-American singer and comedian, turned the song into a hit, peaking at #23 on the Billboard charts in 1949. (He released it on an album called “Shillelaghs & Shamrocks!”, which is about as stereotypically Irish as it gets.) Considering that the hearing in question occurred in February 1951, this was an impressively contemporary reference. (Imagine a Senator quoting Olivia Rodrigo or Lil Nas X in a hearing today.)

Thanks to the magic of YouTube, you can enjoy this fine ditty for yourself below. (I should warn you, though, that it’s a real earworm. Listen to it once, and you’ll be hearing it in your head for weeks.)

I warned you, didn’t I?