Burlington Bertie...

...if you were a regular visitor to the Olympia Theatre in Dublin in the 1930's, you might have seen my mam perform this song;

Blessed Eileen of Mucklagh...

Fact stranger than fiction.

My mother, who always said that I'd be late for my own funeral is probably laughing at the irony. Her remains have apparently disappeared. This morning, the undertaker was bringing her from Galway mortuary to Birr Funeral Parlour - less than 100 miles - for a 4 pm showing.

Last reports from my brothers and sisters was that she hadn't turned up yet. That was 7.40. I suspect a second Assumption.

She's due in Dublin for 10.00am Mass and I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Me, my mother and Leonard Cohen

Hey That’s No Way To Say Goodbye Ma

At 6.45 this morning there was a loud knock on my door. I woke instantly. ‘Yes’ I called. The door was unlocked and so the nurse outside opened it and asked me if I knew where I was. Of course I did – it was my mother was on the drugs.

I was in room 24 in St. Monica’s ward in Galway hospital and my Mam was just down the corridor. I’d said goodnight to her at about 12.55 the previous evening and told her where I’d be if she needed me.

We’d been listening to Leonard Cohen – Live in London and humming along.

My mother was doing an increasing amount of morphine and hadn’t been saying anything for some days as the tube that entered her nose went down somewhere inside her and she was supposed to excrete through this tube. That’s the sort of thing my mother wouldn’t be caught dead doing and so this tube was only for show.

Contrary to the expectations of the extraordinary nursing staff, she didn’t struggle for life for the last 10 minutes and give me a chance to hold her for her last breath. Instead, she breathed in, breathed out and left it at that. I don’t think she could have been dead for more than 3 minutes when I got to her and suspect that my mother wouldn’t be caught dead dying in front of anybody.

I’ve just arrived back in Dublin and can’t remember being so glad to be going to my own bed and it’s been a long, spinning sort of day. It has been an honour to have spent a big chunk of my mother’s last five days at her side.

Eileen O’Neill Born 10^th November 1920. Died 16^th September 2009

Rest in Peace

a song...

...written with Klaus Caprani on Inis oir. You can see Klaus performing it at the Copenhagen songwriter festival on my facebook page (link at bottom)

Walking on stones

Drone of the ferry

Fading into mist

Remembering the first time we kissed

Church bell sings it’s lonely lament

Wondring where it’s congregation went

Wonder where it’s congregation went

Hear the seagulls laugh

As I’m walking on the stones

Walking on the stones alone

Still hear them laughing

When you waved at the waves

Guess they never thought you wouldn’t stay

Guess I never thought you’d go away

Chorus

And the souls of the fishermen departed

I know they’re taking care of you for me

Walking on stones on a kinder shore

Walking on stones lightly

Warm of the sweater

Every stitch from your hand

Unravels like the maker’s plan

Always with me

Fading with me

Till the day I rest my tired bones

Hand in hand – walking on the stones

Bridge

Used to run from stone to stone

How I never broke a bone

God knows – god knows

Used to run from stone to stone

How I never broke a bone

God knows –God knows

Chorus

Chorus

Drone of the ferry

Disappears into mist

Remembering the first time we kissed

Remembering the last time we kissed

http://www.facebook.com/seanoneillsongs?ref=profile

be careful out there....

Who’da thunk buying a mobile phone battery could be so fraught with pitfalls. When my nokia battery died a few months ago, I went to the shop I’d bought the phone in to buy a new one. ‘We’re out of batteries for that phone’, they told me, and told me where I’d get a new one. It was an awkward place for me to get to – parking etc – and my daughter, the cyclist, said she’d pick one up for me.

The new battery cost 35euro and came in nokia packaging but within a week, didn’t seem to be holding, or taking, much of a charge. I phoned the shop and asked if it maybe was an inferior battery and was told that they only sold nokia batteries. I pointed out that there was no hologram on it like the original one. ‘All our batteries have holograms’, they said and told me to bring it back – with the receipt. Do you always keep receipts?

Yesterday, I finally bit the bullet and walked to the shop – a city walk for the dog too – to buy a new one. I’ve been living with the phone plugged in for the past few weeks, at home or in the car and two hours, 10 photographs, one minute of video or three phone calls was about the maximum I’d get – unplugged.

Saying nothing about the previous battery, I asked for a new one. ‘Do you want a genuine Nokia one or a fake?’ the guy asked.

‘What’s the difference?’

‘Real one 35euro. Fake one ten’

I said I’d take the real one. When he produced the one in the Nokia pack and slid it out – pack not sealed in any way, I looked at it and asked where the hologram was. This one doesn’t have a hologram, only some of them do. I thought ALL Nokia batteries have. By way of justification, he told me that a lot of the ones with a hologram were fake. Ok, what’s the warranty? No warranty! Unbelievable!

As that didn’t seem like such a fantastic deal, I decided to walk on in to the main shopping area – briefly toying with the 10 euro ‘genuine fake’ one – and try a few phone shops. The general vibe is that phone shops will order batteries in but would prefer to sell you a new cell – I tried about five. The Nokia repair shop didn’t carry stock either and could have one in a week – for about 50 euro.

One of the phone shops had mentioned a Chinese guy who sold phones an batteries and I eventually decided to check out his shop. My phone is a huge part of my everyday. It’s my catcher for song ideas, my always with me camera and video recorder, as well as keeping me in touch with the world. I wanted it back and functioning.

The battery I bought was pretending to be nothing, came in it’s own Chinese brand packaging and came with a warranty and a recommendation from the owner of the shop – and all for 25euro. It’s charged and seems to be holding it’s charge. Will post update.

Be careful what you wish for...

One wish was all that was on offer from the fairy – the recession is having it’s effect in Fairyland too. My friend thought for a while and decided that even with loads of money and a flash car, any woman who’d be interested, would probably be a ‘gold-digger’ and that that would inevitably end in disaster.

‘I’d like to be irresistible to women’ he wished.

Now my friend is walking around……..

…. as a really beautiful pair of Jimmy Choos

Leonard Cohen....

...has to be the coolest man on the planet. After 40 years waiting to see him, last year I did and, while expecting to be disappointed so was totally blown away.

Last week, my son gave me his Live in London (recorded a few days after the Dublin gig) and I've been listening to it constantly since. I didn't see him this time round as I felt that perfection couldn't be topped.

here's something I wrote soon after the gig;

Leonard Cohen. Dublin Friday 13^th June 2008

If John Lennon and George Harrison came back from the dead, teamed up with Paul and Ringo and played a concert in a stadium with Elvis opening for them, it couldn’t, for me have held a candle to the Friday 13^th gig in the grounds of the Royal Hospital in Kilmainam in Dublin.

When I first listened to ‘The Rock Machine Turns You On’ and heard Cohen sing, ‘All the Sisters of Mercy they are not departed or gone…..’, I was hooked. I was sixteen and wanted to sing like that or even just sing. I knew nothing about Cohen – information was much harder to come by when there was no Internet.

A couple of years later I’d bought a couple of his albums, a songbook and could play Suzanne, even the in between verses guitar bits, I could figure out. The chord boxes in the songbook would help me figure out fsharp minor and other chords I needed to add to my usual 3 chord trick songs and – while not actually sounding like Leonard, I was happy enough with my own solitary sound, when playing his songs – more so than when trying to create a reasonable rendition of say, Satisfaction or any of the groups’ song from around that time. I was singing songs I didn’t understand the meaning of but I did know they meant something more than ‘She loves you yeah yeah yeah etc.’

Many years later, I turned to these songs in times of confusion and found a lot of answers in his writing – sometimes to questions I wasn’t even asking. I met him in a dream – sitting in his car waiting for ‘Mrs. Cohen’ to finish the supermarket shop and as we were both killing time, even felt free to ask him the burning question about ‘Famous Blue Raincoat’*

He did play in Ireland, at least once before – it passed me by as a was a full-time student running my business in my spare time to support my three children and pay the rent so concerts were out of the question and I didn’t even want to know what gigs I was missing, never mind getting to go to them.

When I heard he was playing in Dublin this year, I didn’t do anything about booking as somewhere in my mind, the guy meant so much to me that he could only disappoint - something about meeting your heroes. I’d buy some records instead.

In the most unlikely circumstance, I was told, on Thursday that there was a possibility of a spare ticket being available for the Friday concert and was asked if I would go. On Friday it was confirmed and so I did.

Stadium gigs usually leave me feeling a bit unfulfilled – the crowd who want to be there so they can say they were at the gig of the year, can make it almost impossible to enjoy the music. This was different. From the minute Leonard Cohen walked on to the stage, this was a special night. While the stage itself was a speck in the distance, the large screen brought an intimacy I’ve never experienced – compliments to the camera crew on an excellent job. On stage, nothing was rushed or even, music aside, seemed rehearsed. It was as if Leonard Cohen had come to see us. His happiness radiated form every fibre of him. His appreciation of the audience, of his musicians, singers, the beautiful location and even the moon was just about matched by the ‘band’s’ obvious love and respect for this man – a legend but also very much just a man. It was as if everything was awe-inspiring and everyone was beautifully in awe. Respect abounded. Cohen took his hat off – literally – to the individual members of the band and gave the stage to each for their solo contributions and then just came right back in as ‘one of the guys’ when it was his turn.

I realize I’m doing a poor job at saying what I wanted to say and if, as I planned to, I’d written this right after the gig I might have been able to express much better all that I felt but, as usual, life got in the way and so ‘rapture light’ is the best I can do.

When I began songwriting, asked about my influences, the four people I always mentioned were Leonard Cohen, John Prine, John Irving and Guy Clark. As of last Friday I’ve seen them all - live.

*I just had to know if it was about the singer Johnny Ray. I don’t know what part of my sub consciousness that came from but the dream features in track 8 on my ‘Losers & Sinners’ album. I’ll put it on my Myspace page soon.