If you’re making a TV series about one of New York City’s most notoriously violent Irish gangs, the Dropkick Murphys are gonna want to know about it. The veteran Boston-bred Irish-American Celtic punk group got wind that Narcos creator Chris Brancato was working on a new series for MGM+ called The Westies — inspired by the organized crime gang that terrorized Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood in the early 1960s — and they wanted in.
“Rowdy violent music for a rowdy violent show. Seems like a perfect match,” Murphys singer Ken Casey tells Billboard about why he and the crew thought their rollicking, felonious anthem “Dropped on My Head,” would be the perfect main title theme song for the series. The track, which previously appeared on the band’s 2025 For the People album, is a high-kicking chronicle of a ne’er-do-well who just can’t seem to fly straight. The chorus says it all: “See, I’m always wrong in the eyes of the law/ Parents and priests say it’s the final straw/ But sure as the sun, it rises and sets/ I’ll do it again, it’s a surefire bet.”
According to a description, the series starring J.K. Simmons, Titus Welliver, Tom Brittney, Stanley Morgan, Sarah Bolger, Jessica Frances Dukes and more is set in the early 1980s, when the Westies sought to cash in on the construction of the Jacob Javits Convention Center on their Hell’s Kitchen turf. “Despite being outnumbered fifty-to-one by the Five Families of the Italian Mafia, the Westies’ legendary brutality and cunning have given them the leverage necessary to share the spoils through a fragile détente,” it reads. “But internal conflict between the brash younger generation and the old-school leadership threatens to set a match to this powder keg, which will sweep the Westies into the FBI’s ever-deepening investigation into the Italian mafia.”
When the Murphys heard about the series — which premieres on Sunday (July 12) — they knew they had to be involved. Manager Jeff Castelaz of Cast Management tells Billboard it was a match made in Hell(‘s Kitchen). “When the show reached out about us doing the theme song, we actually had an existing song from our latest album where the lyrics perfectly described the environment, the characters, and the story arc of The Westies,” he says. “When Chris Brancato heard ‘Dropped on My Head,’ he had an immediate reaction, and the deal was done. This happens once in a lifetime in our business.”
Actually, Castelaz adds, sometimes lightning does strike twice, noting that director Martin Scorsese prominently featured the Murphys’ “I’m Shipping Up To Boston” in his Oscar-winning crime drama The Departed in 2006.
The band has uploaded a fast-paced video for the song featuring intercut scenes from the series. Check it out below.
