Four Dropkick Murphys shows in Boston? It must be St. Patrick's Day

The Dropkick Murphys have always been a band devoted to workingmen and women and their lives, loves and struggles. It's no surprise that they'd feel a kinship with the late Woody Guthrie, but at this point they look at Woody as a constant presence.

The Dropkick Murphys' latest album is an acoustic collection of songs with lyrics from the legendary folk singer, titled after the message Guthrie scrawled on his guitar: "This Machine Still Kills Fascists." It was released last September. A second collection of Guthrie-inspired songs, "Okemah Rising," will be released May 12, and it's pretty likely many of those tunes will be played this week in Boston.

The Dropkick Murphys' annual St. Patrick's Day week series of shows in their hometown kicks off Thursday at the new MGM Music Hall, and continues there Friday and Saturday, before finishing up with a Sunday show at The House of Blues. The MGM Music Hall is at Fenway Park and all those shows start at 7 p.m. with different opening acts. The Turnpike Troubadours open Thursday through Saturday, with Nikki Lane joining them Thursday, The Rumjacks on Friday and Quincy's Jesse Ahern on Saturday. The shows are sold out.

As perfect as the union of Guthrie with the Dropkick Murphys seems to be, it came from a convoluted path. Guthrie's grandson was a big fan of the band, and had their posters all over his room. His mother, Nora, Woody's daughter and manager of his archives, asked her son about all those posters and this Boston band in 2001.

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"Nora researched us, heard our music, and invited us to the archives, which were then in New York City," Dropkicks singer Ken Casey said from an Indianapolis tour stop last week. "We were able to hold in our hands, wearing special gloves of course, so as not to damage the papers, actual lyrics and notes he had written, about where he was and what he was thinking when he wrote them. It was really cool to get that kind of insight. At the time, we only used two of them for songs, but most people don't realize that 'I'm Shipping Up to Boston' is a Woody Guthrie lyric. We already had developed an instrumental, and it was a perfect fit for 'Shipping.' After that, Nora took some time to go through the archives and find lyrics she felt might work for us as songs."

Casey continued: "We had been too busy with our careers before to really dive into it, but we wanted to do a tribute to Woody as an acoustic album. Since (lead singer) Al Barr is still on leave with his mother's condition ... it seemed like the best time to do that acoustic album. We felt like Woody's music lends itself to more of an Americana flavor than our usual electric music, and it was also just nice to do something different."

The Guthrie archives are now in Oklahoma, and the band recorded the album in Tulsa, at Leon Russell's The Church studio. There are a handful of videos out for the album's songs, most of them shot around Boston. The aspirational "Cadillac Cadillac" was filmed around the North End, while the ballad "Never Git Drunk" was filmed along the Boston waterfront, with guest vocalist Nikki Lane trading verses with Casey.

Some of the tunes are real workingman's anthems, such as "The Last One," with guest Evan Felker of the Turnpike Troubadours, with its line "a workingman's hand is the hardest card in the whole damn deck to play." Or the rousing "All You Fonies," as direct, forceful and inspiring a union song as has ever been penned.

The Dropkick Murphys have never shied away from social issues, but this album, and the follow-up volume due in two months, are a step toward even more direct and potentially controversial subjects. Things today are not quite as simple as they were when Guthrie penned his suggestion for what America could do with Hitler, and fascists in general: "Dig a Hole." Which leads inexorably to Casey's mid-concert speech last year, which became a viral video of him exhorting fans to vote for people who might actually help them.

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"My viral YouTube clip from Pennsylvania, right before the midterms?" Casey asked with a rueful laugh. "This concert was set up right next to a big fair, and I had spent the day walking around that fair. What I was seeing was a flea market for hate, and it was very disturbing. I understand you get more flies with honey, and nothing I say is likely to change many minds. But sometimes you just have to say what you believe in, and hope that America remains a great country for all of us."

"In the song 'Ten Times More,' on the album, Woody is talking about fighting disinformation," Casey said. "When you encounter something like that, you want to take the high road, but that's generally not my nature. We know the 'shut up and sing' people are out there, but I think most fans probably don't want robots up there singing. Some might not agree with us, but can appreciate that we are singing from the heart. I believe 75% of Americans want to have a dialogue about these issues, but it is the extremes on both sides that keep us apart. There are big things at stake in Europe, and when we sang 'All You Fonies' over there, we changed it to 'All You Tories,' and the audiences loved it."

The Dropkick Murphys are finishing their current 16-date national tour with these shows in Boston.  And the availability of the new venue allows them to do just four shows, instead of the week's worth they've done in the past.

"We've played the Garden, and it just didn't work for connecting with our fans," Casey said. "Agganis Arena is nice but it is still an arena. We love to play places in the 3,000-4,000-5,000-seat range around the country. When we started these St. Patrick's shows, we did Avalon (at the site of The House of Blues) it was 1,500 capacity, and we had to do seven or eight shows to accommodate everyone. We try to make every show special, but at that point we only had five or six albums out, so it was a challenge. Now, three shows at MGM are perfect for us, and then one more at The House of Blues. And since this next one will be our 12th album, we have a much bigger catalog of songs."

Listening to a preview of the forthcoming album, it features more of Guthrie's pointed songs, and it is obvious in several places that Casey takes his new duty as lead singer seriously, with markedly smoother vocals on tunes like "My Eyes" and "Curfew Blow." Jesse Ahern swaps verses with him on the invigorating "Boundary Line," and that traditional Celtic sound on "Break a Leg," with the Violent Femmes guesting, is a treat for longtime Dropkicks fans. There's even a stripped-down take on "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" that lets you really hear Guthrie's words to the song that became a Dropkick Murphys signature song in 2005.

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THURSDAY: Don't miss Honest Mechanik, the duo of South Shore singer Susan Cattaneo and singer/guitarist Paul Hansen, at The Spire Center, for sterling harmonies and smart songwriting. Canadian singer SonReal at Brighton Music Hall. Ingrid Andress sings at The Sinclair. Uncle John's Banjo with Dead songs at Soundcheck Studios. Folk singer Lindsay Foote at Club Passim. Sawyer Fredericks from "The Voice," with Chastity Brown, at City Winery.

FRIDAY: An Evening with Dawes brings the Los Angeles rockers to Roadrunner. Boston Harbor Distillery has two superb roots bands, with Jimmy Ryan's band and Bob Bradshaw's group. Hawthorne Heights rocks The Paradise. Acoustic Alchemy's dazzling jazz-pop blend at The Spire Center. The Bogmen get down at The Sinclair. R&B singer Elle Varner at City Winery. Antje Duvekot at Club Passim. The Joshua Tree's show at Soundcheck Studios is sold out.

SATURDAY: Houston rock quartet Blue October headlines The Orpheum Theatre. The supergroup Wall of Grass provides acoustic magic at Club Passim at 1 p.m.; guitar ace Tim Gearan is the evening attraction. Livingston Taylor sings at The Spire Center. Forever Young, a tribute to Neil, is at The Narrows Center. The pop/rap trio Epik High is at Roadrunner. Echoes of Floyd, saluting Pink Floyd, plays Soundcheck Studios. The The Band Band (I've always thought it's an awful-awful band moniker) does its tribute to The Band at City Winery.

SUNDAY: Sunday night Soundcheck Studios offers Dogs in a Pile, original funk-rock from Asbury Park.

MONDAY: YouTube/Instagram etc. sensation Tiffany Day sings at Brighton Music Hall on Monday night, while comic Zainab Johnson performs at City Winery.

TUESDAY: Look for Norwegian songwriter Anna of the North at Brighton Music Hall, James McMurtry solo at City Winery or hardcore punk rockers Show Me the Body at the Paradise.

WEDNESDAY: Canadian rockers Rural Alberta Advantage arrive at Brighton Music Hall and their new album is hot.

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Dropkick Murphys ready to rock St. Patrick's Day with 4 Boston gigs