Why I write.

Maybe for the first time in my life, the work I do comes close to reflecting the bits and pieces from which I am made.

All sorts of factors meet within the frontal lobe of my brain- curiosity, energy, low attention span, sensitivity and an odd sense of justice to name but five, to direct this pair of hands to create strings of words on a keyboard rather than something potentially more useful like a set of shelves for the sitting room. I write, and writing is at the beating heart of what I can offer. Music, in so far as it plays a large part in my working life, fills in the short gaps when I am not engaged in it.

This particular observation began life at around six o’clock this morning when it occurred to me that, for the last 3 weeks at least, I have only actually listened to one piece of music. Just one. Of the many hundreds of tunes on my various Spotify playlists, and the many thousands available beyond that, I have not only narrowed it down to one playlist, but to one 4 minute 17 second song within it. In that period, I have probably listened to it over 100 times. To say that it has consumed me is to say that bears are vaguely interested in woods.

The song is based on a poem, a poem written in Dublin in 1947. It is an almost unbearably poignant account of an unrequited love between the 40 year old poet and a girl 18 years his junior. The poet, Patrick Kavanagh, gave it to a singer called Luke Kelly in 1966, who finally recorded it four years later, to the tune of a traditional Irish folk tune, The Dawning of the Day. It came to a wider public attention when Kelly, by now a member of the Dubliners, recorded it in 1971. By far the best versions, for me, are the ones recorded by the hell-raising Kelly on his own, and the nearer they are to his own untimely death in 1984 (at only 43), the better they are.

I don’t even care if it sounds pretentious for me to say that the effect on me of this exquisite poem being united with this haunting tune is deeper than I can easily express. If I tell you that it regularly makes me cry, that’s probably the best I can do. Wrapped up in it all is the real grief of Kavanagh, his stunning verbal imagery, the song’s simple melody and Kelly’s extraordinary but doomed voice

The song, which was brought to a much wider audience in the 2008 film, In Bruges, is called Raglan Road. (If you don’t know it, and want to listen to it, the song, and its lyrics, are below).

You will doubtless have music that has a similar, if less extreme, effect on you, the music that might be the last record you save when the other 7 are swept away from your Desert Island. And, like me, your list will change from time to time.

Nothing matters, other than the love for it. Neither the sentiment nor the poetry; not the grubby Dublin streets nor the imperfect relationship. It doesn’t even matter that Luke Kelly would probably want to die, if he hadn’t already, rather than to be idolised by someone from the very class and country that he most despised. Like all music, all art in fact, that touches the soul, it is best not even to question how it got there, and what it did when it bedded in. Instead, best just to be grateful that you, of all people, were touched.

I don’t even understand why it makes me cry. It’s just that, maybe, the fact that it does explains why I do what I do for a living.

For anyone who has not had the pleasure, please just pour yourself a dram and do so now.

On Raglan Road of an autumn day
I saw her first and knew
That her dark hair would weave a snare
That I might one day rue

I saw the danger and I passed
Along the enchanted way
And I said, “Let grief be a fallen leaf
At the dawning of the day”

On Grafton Street in November
We tripped lightly along the ledge
Of a deep ravine, where can be seen
The worth of passion’s pledge

The Queen of Hearts, still making tarts
And I’m not making hay
Oh, I loved too much, and by such, by such
Is happiness thrown away

I gave her gifts of the mind
I gave her the secret sign
That’s known to the artists who have known
The true gods of sound and stone

And word and tint without stint
I gave her poems to say
With her own name there, and her own dark hair
Like clouds over fields of May

On a quiet street where old ghosts meet
I see her walkin’ now
Away from me so hurriedly
My reason must allow

That I had loved not as I should
A creature made of clay
When the angel woos the clay, he’d lose
His wings at the dawn of day