What would Irish folk balladeers make of the toxic Gowanus Canal?
A softly sung tale of a maiden doomed to die in its fetid waters, according to a new parody video on the New Yorker magazine's website.
The short film shows an earnest musician couple in his-and-her chunky-framed glasses introducing a song "translated today from Gaelic."
The tune starts off with innocent-sounding references to a "fair maiden lass on the banks of the great Gowa-ah-nussss."
But it soon takes a horrific turn when the poor girl falls into the chemical-laden waterway.
"Her lungs filled with trash and her skin burned right off and her eyeballs bubbled and her tongue turned black...It was gross and I almost threw up," the young woman and man sing with serious faces to a visibly moved audience of hipsters in beards and beanies.
Check out the full video here.
