Sinead's funeral has taken place. A massive turn-out along Bray promenade and up onto the head as her hearse filed past her old home of fifteen years. I'd assume the private funeral will include a cremation instead of a grave, but she may have wanted to lay down next to her mother, who knows?
Here's a track she experimented with and did a sweet job of too. It also features Ireland's finest, Stevie Wickham on his violin for the 'Drowsy Maggie' reference across the outro. Stevie was everyone's baby: after first forming and then quitting In Tua Nua, he'd already built himself a reputation for electric fiddle playing.
He was in one local band in Ballyfermot with his old pal Hughie Purcell, RIP. I used to go along to hear their rehearsal sessions in the local girl's school during the week at evening time. The big hall had an amazing reverb that made his electrified old violin sound like God crying; a beautiful player. Later we were neighbours in Portobello and he often called in to jam with us in the living room of a tiny house we rented. Later again he invited me for the auditions for The Waterboys, whom he joined after meeting Mike Scott. They had a hard time dealing with the suicide of their regular drummer, Kevin Wilkinson (RIP) and the auditions were a horror show of bad moods, anger, members hating each other, and poor little old Mowl in the middle of it all for a weekend out in Dun Laoire's 'Top Hat' venue where they set up out on the floor, not on the stage. This way they/we could all see each other. But two members turned their stools to face their amps because they couldn't even look at each other without everything grinding to a halt. After the second day I was bollocksed and didn't see the point in finishing the weekender - these guys needed time out, not an upcoming album recording and subsequent tour. They'd have killed each other. The following album, 'Fisherman's Blues' was a country themed album very different to anything they did before and I have to admit that playing two-step country rhythms for minor chord tunes was a load of pretentious shite. 'A Bang On The Ear' and the title track were horrible to my ears, and when the Grafton Street buskers got a hold of it it was even more annoying.
This one was great fun to play, but it's also one of Kevin's last sessions with the band and they decided to use his tracked drums for the album version. Simple chords, angry lyrics, a big stadium sound, and battering drum-fills made this one Kevin's - and Stevie's:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu65eMTuqsQ
Anyway: so long to Sinead O'Connor - she'll go down in the history books and her light will continue to shine across the next generations. Like her music or loathe it, it's still what it is: a massive collection of on-point genius level arrangements and searing vocal abilities. And if thicko Val's reading: it's not '
The Emperor Has No Clothes' you thick cunt. It's '
The Emperor's New Clothes' as in that little story we were told as children to teach us about honesty and being yourself. In school. You probably didn't go to school though, right? Home-schooled by your aul fella, he taught you how to be a big mad thick cunt just like himself, you sad old tart.