Current listening: Sinéad's sean-nós
Before the Dubliners turned into a musical parody in pursuit of a pension, they actually represented something worth listening to. Their compelling anarchy rested on a solid foundation — John Sheahan's fiddling, Barney McKenna's banjo, Ciaran Bourke's tin whistle, Ronnie Drew's gravelly voice and, above all, Luke Kelly's majestic singing. One of Kelly's great songs was Peggy Gordon, a ballad of troubled love with verses such as:
It was my fancy I do declare
For when I'm drinking
I'm always thinking
And wishing Peggy Gordon was here"
Peggy Gordon is the first song on Sinéad O'Connor's new album, Sean-nós nua (literally "the new old-style"), which draws its material and inspiration from the ballad singing culture that produced the Dubliners. Right away, I have to say that O'Connor's managed to do something I'd considered impossible: resuscitate songs that had yielded their lustre after decades of being mutilated in bars and clubs from Ahane to Zwickau. Her Báidín Fheilimí assertively banishes memories of all those twee children's choirs that hijacked it three decades ago; her Peggy Gordon is filled with love and loss, and the twinkling version of I'll Tell Me Ma is a clever way of rounding out a collection of songs that's long on, well, longing.
Now, some of those with a knowledge of Irish folk music might argue that the presence of songs on this recording such as Molly Malone and The Singing Bird is very much at odds with the tradition of unaccompanied singing in Gaelic that sean-nós really is. Darach O' Cathain and other masters of the sean-nós would hardly be found recording such hackneyed stuff, would they?
O'Connor's album is titled Sean-nós nua, however, and it's the nua bit that tends to be overlooked by those expecting more songs from the island's ancient rural culture and fewer from its modern urban one. Regardless of the divide between title and content, her ethereal version of My Lagan Love is up there with the great interpretations of Irish song. The expression, the emphasis on rhythm and the broad vocal range employed show a deep understanding of the tradition.
Even though she's no longer a sensation, Sinéad O'Connor remains original. Sean-nós nua is impressive.
