Community
Playlist Highlights:
Tadgh Williams
A perfect poetic piece which sets a wholesome tone for our playlist this month!
My Father’s Clouds is a nostalgic reflection on the community Mr. Tadgh (Tigger) Williams grew up in. Throughout the song he paints a picture of his past using small but entirely symbolic images, ones that we all recognise:
“A cloud of smoke and chitchat“
Growing up, my Grandad was in a constant cloud of smoke and chitchat, so I can relate.
Tadgh’s clouds imagery is perfectly symbolic for Irish culture and for the majority of Irish men; fathers and sons alike. It really touches on that moment you’re first able to have a pint and a smoke with your da’ out the back, and how special a moment that really is.
Tadgh is able to draw attention to those small details that we don’t always notice growing up, until looking back on them and realising how big a part of us they really were. Sure you wouldn’t be Irish without “a pint of coffee or a mug of tea”.
Lili Mare
It Should Be Enough is a song about German artist Lili Mare’s hometown. She touches on those negative feelings that we all perceive about our hometowns at some point. Doubt, resentment, limitation and confinement. The desire to flee and not ever look back:
“What if we never leave?”
Lili manages to capture that push and pull conflict we can feel between simultaneously loving and appreciating the place you grew up in, and feeling trapped or suffocated by it.
Isn’t it enough? She asks.
It should be enough.
Backroad Smokers Club
The funksters are back. This is fantastic news for the people of Waterford, if not, the world.
Music is a Movement is a song that would just as equally fit on last month’s theme The Importance of Art. The guys portray why exactly music is so important, and how it brings a community and the world together.
Backroad Smoker’s Club are a much-loved band within the Waterford community. Even just hearing their name brings back memories of outdoor gigs in City Square, sun shining, Ginos ice-cream in hand, and a trip down to Geoffs for a summer pint on the cards. Hopefully we’ll all get to experience that feeling again soon. We can’t wait for the album release gig, when it comes around.
Luke Clerkin
Another song that represents our theme all too well. Luke has a passion for his community, and you can hear it in every touching lyric he writes (and his writes many).
Stones is just one of those. Released last month, it’s a song about having the courage to let your guard down and to embrace your community. – To trust the people you live around enough, to be honest and to “let your feelings flow“.
It’s a plea against the division we feel in our communities these days, and the mental health crises we’ve suffered due to the effects of technology and distancing. It’s highlights the walls we put up against the very people we live around:
“Isn’t everyone a stranger, til they say hello?”
For the release of Stones, Luke ran an inclusive campaign which asked people to submit pictures of themselves holding a sign saying ‘it’s OK not to be OK”, and subsequently making it the collage artwork for the single.
We commend this idea! It made the single release more of a community effort. It accomplished what the song intends to do: bring people together.
Tha Wha
More of a tongue-in-cheek answer to the theme of community; The Wha are the perfect amount of against-the-grain indie.
40 Odd Years is a song you expect will paint a picture of a typical Irish married couple. However there are a few twists to that narrative within the song.
“So I’m here in her husbands’ wardrobe; When he came back from work…”
Listen to hear what happens next!
Sarah Crean
Sarah’s stunning voice mixed with a soothing tremolo guitar is reason enough to put this song on repeat. The touching story behind the song, is just the icing on the cake!
Sarah explains:
“It’s about a community abroad that I was welcomed into with open arms.”
And you can feel that with every line she delivers.
For anyone who’s ever left a place much loved(a city, school, neighbourhood…), and felt the tug of the heart strings along with it: “Please, Stay the Same” is a song you’re going to love.
It resonates with the desire we can have for time to freeze once we leave a place; so that when we return, nothing will have changed.
In fact, her entire EP was released just last month and we recommend listening to it all!
Goddamn! 