"Where Do You Wander?" is a harrowing lyrical testament to the enduring trauma of Ireland's Magdalene Laundry survivors. Through a series of haunting, repetitive questions, the poem maps the psychological hellscape of a survivor—referred to with heartbreaking irony as "Grace." It probes the visceral, waking nightmares of institutional abuse: the sting of the strap, the blistering heat of industrial washing machines, the terror of nighttime footsteps, and the cruel removal of personal dignity, symbolized by the taking of "your laces." The lyrics force the reader to confront the physical and emotional brutality inflicted upon young women and girls, whose children were stolen from them and whose very identities were systematically stripped away.

The piece escalates from intimate terror to a searing indictment of the system that enabled this abuse. The chorus condemns the "manufactured disgrace"—the calculated, religiously-sanctioned shaming used to control and break the vulnerable. It shifts the focus from individual torment to collective guilt, asking why the entire country was "on the same page" in its silent complicity. The poem ultimately points a direct finger at the powerful, intertwining entities of the Church and the State ("The daughters of Rome... Shame on the state!"), holding them accountable for bending lives irrevocably "out of shape" and for the enduring silence that compounds the survivors' grief.

The poem's structure itself performs its catharsis. The relentless questioning builds a crushing emotional weight, which is finally released in the devastating, whispered-to-screamed coda: "(Galway's disgrace)." This repeated line transforms from a personal memory into a public accusation, growing in volume and intensity until it becomes an unstoppable, collective scream for justice. It is no longer just a question of where one wounded soul wanders in memory, but where a nation's conscience must wander in the face of a historical atrocity it has yet to fully acknowledge or atone for.

Where Do You Wander?

This song is a stark and moving portrait of a family using the relentless rhythm of manual labor to build a barrier against an all-consuming grief. The narrative opens with the mending of a literal fence, a day's cost measured in tired muscles, but the chorus immediately reveals the true purpose of this constant busywork: it is a fragile defense against a pain they feel too weak to face. The "fences" they fix multiply—from roofs to hinges, to peeling doors—each chore a desperate attempt to hold their world together when a central piece, their daughter Cathy, has vanished from it.

The devastating core of the song is slowly revealed through spare, haunting details: Cathy was a "ray of sunshine" who was "hard to manage," and her departure was as quiet and final as a bus stopping outside their door. Her absence has rendered the children quiet and the parents silent, circling each other, unable to "break the ice." They are "attached to peeling doors" because focusing on a tangible, fixable problem is easier than confronting the unfixable void she left behind.

The song fades out on a cyclical and hopeless note, returning to the mended fence as if the entire painful journey has led them right back to the beginning of their avoidance. The final, repeated lament—"if only we could fix / the life we're living"—hangs in the air, a quiet testament to the truth that some ruptures are beyond any repair, no matter how many fences they build to try and contain the hurt.

Fixing Fences....we don't talk about Cathy

"The Wrong Man, The Wrong Time" is a haunting gothic ballad that chronicles a supernatural odyssey of love, vengeance, and cosmic indifference. It begins not with magic, but with a human act of cruel passion: a woman's defiant slap and a walk into flames, setting in motion a descent into a mythic underworld of ancient witches, haunting banshees, and predatory landscapes. The story masterfully blends the visceral bitterness of a failed relationship with the eerie texture of folklore, suggesting that personal wounds can open doorways to older, darker forces that wait in places like the "shan-a-kee's ancient tomb."

The narrative unfolds as a dual pursuit: her journey into a covenant of "savage women" and his desperate, doomed chase through a coastal mist taunted by omens. The song's chilling chorus transforms the piece into a ritual, where the witches' dance, the banshees' bone-time, and the crows' wicked rhymes become a savage symphony celebrating his destruction. Their reunion is not redemption but a consummation of the trap, as her kiss ensnares him once more just before the coven tears him apart in a "wild rotation"—a sacrifice to an ancient, female power that operates beyond mortal morals.

In the devastating aftermath, the focus returns to her ambiguous grief and the story's bleak, existential core. The final verses reveal the true tragedy: there is no grand reason, no destined meaning behind the horror. The outro delivers the cold verdict with spoken-word finality: "He was the wrong man, in the wrong place." The world sleeps on, unchanged and unknowing, as the song closes with the coven's eternal, echoing chorus—a reminder that while individual lives are consumed by indifferent forces, the ancient, wild, and dreadful dance simply continues.

The Wrong Man and The Witches

Christmas isn't Christmas

Leopold Bloom 

This song follows Leopold Bloom, the famously wandering protagonist of Ulysses, as he returns to Dublin after time away in the East. It blends playful imagery, symbolic encounters, and social commentary to create a richly layered portrait of both the man and the city he navigates.

Narrative arc:
Bloom arrives back in Dublin and ventures toward Dollymount Strand, a liminal, moonlit landscape where the ordinary and the fantastical meet.

Here he encounters Molly Bloom, playful and enigmatic, fishing in lobsters — a surreal image blending whimsy with erotic suggestion. Their interactions evoke desire, curiosity, and flirtation, lightly tempered by the presence of soldiers, whose rattling guns act as a symbol of external intrusion and societal violence.

The narrative moves fluidly through the streets and social spaces of Dublin: Bloom takes a bus into town, visits pubs, interacts with figures like Mulligan and Boylan, and reflects on personal loss, especially his son Rudy. These vignettes illustrate both urban life and private grief, linking Dublin’s public spaces to Bloom’s intimate experiences.

Themes and symbolism:
Desire and restraint: Encounters with Molly, the soldiers, and other figures dramatize the tension between personal longing and social or moral limits.

Loss and memory: Bloom’s reflections on his deceased son Rudy deepen the song’s emotional resonance, highlighting grief as a persistent, haunting presence.

Societal critique: The song lightly touches on narrow nationalism, xenophobia, and public hypocrisy, using symbols like soldiers’ guns and the chaotic traffic to illustrate societal pressures and prejudices.

Humor and absurdity: Whimsical moments — lobster fishing, dancing in the sand, a “wee German hotdog with mustard” — counterbalance darker reflections, echoing Joyce’s mix of the comic and tragic.

Structure and style:

Choruses reinforce central motifs: the joy and chaos of Dublin life, the disruptive presence of authority, and Bloom’s persistent curiosity.

Verse imagery alternates between surreal and deeply personal, balancing comedy, eroticism, and poignant reflection.

Symbolic objects — rattling guns, red lights, a bus ride, pints of Guinness — connect Bloom’s internal journey with the external urban world.

Overall impression:
The song is a playful yet contemplative tribute to Bloom, capturing his wanderings, his longing, and his reflections on loss, desire, and human folly. Listeners are drawn into a Dublin both real and symbolic, where personal memory, social critique, and whimsical imagery coexist. The work mirrors Joyce’s literary style — dense, multi-layered, and rich with symbolism — while remaining accessible as a musical narrative.

Leopold Bloom

This song is a haunting musical retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl," channeled through the lens of a modern folk ballad. It paints a stark, visceral picture of a forgotten child enduring a freezing Copenhagen night, her bare feet blue against the cobblestones as she is forced to sell matches to avoid a beating. The world around her is a blur of warm, singing families and glowing windows, a cruel contrast to her own "disappearing grace" as she stumbles, a "puny weakened shape" against the relentless sleet and wind.

The heart of the song lies in the chorus, a poignant and active plea where the act of striking a match becomes a magical incantation. Each strike summons a vision of salvation—first warmth, then a feast, then a glorious Christmas tree—each vision more beautiful than the last. This is intercut with the observation that anyone who looked closer would have seen "a single, telling line" on her face, a silent testament to her simple, profound need for "happiness and warmth," a truth she alone knows.

The song culminates in a tragic yet transcendent climax. In her final moments, she strikes all her matches at once, summoning the loving vision of her deceased grandmother, who offers a final, warm escape from the cold. The narrative then shifts to the chilling dawn, where "good Christians" find her lifeless body, a scene observed with a stark, ironic distance. The song ultimately serves as a searing indictment of societal indifference, framing her death not as a quiet passing, but as a sacrifice that forces a confrontation with our own collective soul.

The Little Match Girl (1)

This song is a dark, satirical monologue from the perspective of Greed itself, personified as a proud, manipulative force that rules over humanity. It taunts the listener, boasting about its power to enslave people — from workers and soldiers to bankers and lovers — through endless desire, ambition, and consumption.

Greed drives humanity to war, exploitation, and betrayal, while disguising itself as motivation and success. The narrator (Greed) exposes how people willingly surrender their souls and integrity, mistaking greed for light and progress, only to be led to spiritual and moral ruin.

I am Greed

The song tells the story of a man who becomes obsessed — perhaps even possessed — by the fleeting image of a mysterious woman he sees in Alexandria, Egypt.

He spots her once on a hot, dusty day as she boards a bus. She may or may not smile at him — and that small, ambiguous gesture becomes the spark of his fixation. That night, under a “blue Egyptian moon,” he can’t sleep, replaying the moment endlessly.

As the days go by, he becomes consumed by her memory. He asks scholars to explain the strange power she has over him — but even the “wise men” cannot help. His yearning deepens into a haunting. The woman becomes not just a memory but a ghost, an apparition, something between reality and dream.

His obsession drives him to self-destruction — alcohol, then drugs — all to chase or silence the vision of her. He wanders the streets of Alexandria for years, searching every face, every ship that docks, hoping to see her again.

Eventually, he is confined to a mental institution, questioning what was real and what was imagined. And in a chilling, circular ending, as he sits outside one morning, he does see her again — or believes he does — and she smiles at him once more. The cycle of longing begins anew

A Meeting__m

The song opens by introducing us to Dolly, a woman who has profoundly lost her vibrant spirit, or "mojo." She falls into a deep depression, retreating from the world, sitting in silence, and finding no joy in the things she once loved. Her despair is compounded by a failed relationship and a deep-seated sense of failure, feeling that at twenty-seven, she should be at her peak. Through witty, darkly comic observations from a concerned narrator, we see her futile attempts to recover, including expensive therapy sessions that offer no real solace, painting a picture of a woman completely disconnected from her former, radiant self.

The situation escalates from a personal slump to one of genuine crisis when Dolly suddenly disappears. The narrator's fear becomes palpable, as Dolly is last seen heading toward a bridge—a place heavy with tragic significance, as it is revealed her little sister previously died by suicide there. This detail casts her entire struggle in a much darker light, transforming her "lost mojo" into a life-or-death matter. The community's search proves futile, but a clue emerges that she has boarded a Greyhound bus, with the narrator intuiting she is headed for "Shaky Town," a symbolic destination representing Los Angeles and its promise of chaotic reinvention.

The story concludes not with a quiet recovery, but with a spectacular and triumphant rebirth. In a brilliant, subversive turn, Dolly finds her mojo in the most dramatic way possible: in bed with a Russian sailor who has jumped ship. This act of spontaneous rebellion catalyzes her transformation. The final image is not of a healed woman quietly returning, but of a force of nature arriving in Los Angeles "in a flash of light," ready to reclaim her title as a captivating "one-man-show." The song ends on a note of exhilarating victory, celebrating Dolly's rediscovery of her power and her defiant re-entrance into the world.

Dolly Lost Her Mojo_m

Lay Me Down in Connemara
“Lay Me Down in Connemara” is a haunting, deeply emotional song about longing for rest, belonging, and spiritual return. The narrator, weary from life’s hardships and the loss of innocence, wishes to be laid to rest in Connemara, a place symbolic of purity, memory, and peace — far from the corruption and chaos of the modern world.

The song contrasts urban decay and emotional exhaustion with the timeless beauty of the Irish landscape. Connemara becomes both a literal resting place and a metaphor for redemption — a return to something unspoiled and eternal. The voice is reflective, nostalgic, and filled with quiet defiance; it’s not just a plea for death, but a yearning to reclaim one’s soul in the soil of home.

Lay Me Down in Connemara

Collection of songwriters under the leadership of Bill Kinlough

Where Do You Wander?

The Great Unwashed

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