WhatsApp pinged. ‘Glen Hansard’s dead’, someone wrote.
Over the next couple of hours, a couple of group chats with university friends kept pinging away. A bunch of people from the same era, all gig-goers or musicians, swapping disbelief and stories.
When we went off on holiday for a few weeks, I took a break from writing these little self-serving posts, with the remaining list mapped out. It was going to end with what I think of as the GHEU – the Glen Hansard Extended Universe – because Hansard sat at the nexus of the group of Irish and Northern Irish musicians who heavily inspired me as a young, twenty-something songwriter. And then this happened, and it’s time to jump ahead a little.
I was too young to get the Frames in the late ’90s; my introduction came through the gift of copies of their back catalogue as a student (can you imagine, kids, you actually had to copy a physical CD to share something you’d heard with someone else.)1 I’d heard Fake on the radio, but that was probably all I was really aware of. The album that stuck the most was Dance the Devil, and it picking a single track for this list feels like grabbing something at random – but we’ll go for The Stars Are Underground. In fact, the live version of this song on Set List is probably the definitive version: these are songs to be howled en masse, not polished in a studio.
The Frames have a lot of tracks that betray the influence of grunge and bands like the Pixies, and this one is up there.
Thousands, possibly millions of words have been written this week, and I’ve nothing much of use to add to them. I first saw the Frames in those student days, but it was another record that probably, genuinely, changed my life a little. June 2006, I was living up in Belfast, staying in the chaplaincy houses on my own as I worked the floor of a local hotel in the evenings. It wasn’t a great summer; I got my driving test, but otherwise was often fairly lonely.
I took myself downtown in Belfast – this was when there were still shops you could enjoy going to – and a regular haunt was Zavvi, the former Virgin Megastore. One of my classmates worked there and it was good for hanging around. I came out that day with two brilliant albums, which unusually I had bought even though they were new and not on offer. One was The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions by Seu Jorge.2 The other was, bought on a whim, The Swell Season.
I was in an alt-rock band at the time. We were alright; the songs were straightforward enough to write, and (enough) people came to (most) of the shows and bought a few CDs. But this was the kind of music that I recognised as art.3 Glen’s genius was that he wasn’t particularly shy about wanting to be on the big stages, making something of worth, something that would move people, and being recognised for it; and yet simultaneously always came across as keen to elevate others and share the limelight around. And I think that’s probably why so many other artists I admire were so bereft at his passing, because they’d been part of that.
The Swell Season encapsulates the collision between songwriting, music, and art. Even the CD sleeve was beautiful. The songs orchestrated by this four-piece band, the cello in particular filling a sonic space in between mids and deeps so warmly. Songs like Sleeping and Lies shouldn’t be missed, in between the behemoths of Falling Slowly and When Your Mind’s Made Up which became staple covers for years after.
So a tip of the hat to Glen. It was lovely to spot some of the stars out for his (decidedly secular, even though it was in the cathedral) funeral yesterday; lots of familiar faces, now all a bit older and a bit wiser, singing their songs.4 It’s proven that the Irish approach to bereavement and grief is decidedly healthy, as we grieve in community, through stories and songs, sobs and smiles. Ní maith liom do thrioblóid.
- This reminds me about an article on the joy of old-fashioned music piracy, which is on the list to write some evening soon. There are still stacks of cassette tapes somewhere with my spindly handwriting on them, many taped off the radio. ↩︎
- Which is brilliant. Just brilliant. I don’t know why I haven’t given it an entry on this list; this list is so flawed. Go now, listen to Life on Mars in Brazilian Portuguese on acoustic guitar, and then come back feeling a little better about the world. The production on that album is so clean. ↩︎
- I kept Glen’s Oscar acceptance speech on my iPod for years – ‘Make art! Make art!‘ ↩︎
- How about Eddie Vedder. Again, how is Eddie Vedder not on this list? We’ll sneak in Rise here in the footnotes. ↩︎