A song from 2003 by a band that featured Susan Rowland on lead vocals, Eddie Lee, Delilah Cuddihy, Liam Bradley, Mario Ngoma and Ciaran (Q) Egan, and Padraig Meehan

Walk Up To My Door Demo - No Liberace

BOY: This Radio Play, produced by Aidan Matthews was broadcast in 2003 on RTE Sunday Playhouse. It features John Kavanagh as Commisar Beria. This fictionalised story, partly dream-state, features the interaction between Theremin and its inventor, Leon Theremin, and the son of a high ranking Soviet official. The play was short listed for a Prix Europa in 2014, which that year was held in Berlin. The play prompted a lively discussion in the forum.

NOTE: I see that the audio was cropped prematurely ten seconds before the end, This is the final speech of the Boy,

Ah, but it is slow. It is an immense effort to budge my heavy feet. And then I am there. His hair is white, white as the stars. The fixed smile. He pulls off his gloves. He lifts his smoky goggles. He is looking at me. I cannot move my concrete feet. The eyes are… Trout eyes… I can see right through them, into his head. Lights twinkle there, a distant beacon. A raised right arm. Fingers tremble in the air. I am off the ground. I am flying. I toggle left, right, but I can’t navigate. I am pulled in, towards the beacon. It shines steadily now, a bright star. 
The ground, the forest, flies along below and behind me. Ahead of us the white disk - rapidly increasing in size - throws shadows. In the old place, every shadow of every gravel stone shrinks; the darkness being banished. The colours of the sky! Vivid grey/purple above us. The eastern sky is white. White light falls on the trees. It penetrates the thicket, even the forest lairs. The birds burn. All is turning into light. The audience holds its breath. We enter the sun. No pain, how comical. Just the pull… The power, of the sun…

THE END.

In Beria's Orchard

This was recorded as a duet between Susan and Barry during the Mission Sessions in Slishwood. It’s a song from the 1990’s, first demoed in 2003. This version has a few arrangement tweaks and a new groove. This mix (demo, unmastered) is by Tom Jamieson. We may do more with this in the future.

Going Out.mp3

Bedlam Suitase, from the the album The Fourth Wall. Featuring Izumi Kimura on Piano. Tara B Mooney on vocals, with backing vocals by Nichola MacEvilly, Barry Brennan and Luke Devaney. Drums by Tom Jamieson. Guitars and vocals by Pádraig Meehan. Produced by Gerry Leonard.

Bedlam Suitcase - Man With a Suitcase

My father loved the Grehan Sisters. He loved their singing and thought they were beautiful. He carried me on the bar of his black Raleigh bicycle to the Fleadh in Boyle in the 1960's.
Among many fine music sessions, I heard the Grehans singing the Lakes of Coolfin, and later they chatted to my dad and me. I asked were they sure the boy in the song didn't get rescued. I forget what Francis Grehan said, but my father told me it was a true story about a drowning tragedy and that one had to be careful in lakes like Cavetown, or Corbalagh. He couldn't swim.

I changed the words a bit in places

LAKES OF COOLFIN
Early one morning Willie Leonard arose
And ran to his comrade's bed chambers and roared
"Arise dearest comrades, let nobody know,
It's a fine summer's morning and a bathing we will go!"

To the Lake of Coolfin the comrades soon came
And who should they meet there but the keeper of the game.
"Turn back, Willie Leonard, do not venture in,
There are deep and false waters in the Lake of Coolfin”.

Willie jumped in and he swam the lake ‘round 
'till he came to an island of soft marshy ground
Crying, "Comrades dearest comrades, do not venture in,
For there's false and deep waters in the Lakes of Coolfin"

Later that evening Willie's mother stood there
She was wringing her fingers and tearing out her hair
Saying "woe to the hour young Willie he jumped in 
To the false and deep waters of the Lakes of Coolfin"

Well I saw a fair maid and she stood fast by the shore
And her face it was darkened and her heart it was sore
Singing "woe to the hour young Willie he plunged in
To those deep and dark waters at the Lakes of Coolfin"

Four-and-twenty young men, they were all dressed in white.
Four-and-twenty young maids, all were all dressed in green.
Saying woe to the hour young Willie plunged in
To the false and deep waters of the Lakes of Coolfin


Lakes Of Coolfin

When I was 14 we moved to a 'new' house, which Dad had done up; it was a curious place, an old American-style farmhouse near Croghan which we called 'Dowds'. Big trees loomed over it. Different weeds grew there than at our old thatched house, Finnerans, on the hill. I used to imagine myself a detective, solving cases down the garden, a garden with a smell of cypress, and ground elder and bourtrees and ashes. This song is The Warm Glass. Recorded/Mixed by James Blennerhassett

Bass, cello, James Blennerhasset. Vocals: Yvonne Cunningham.

The Warm Glass (With Yvonne Cunningham and James Blennerhassett)

Arranged by Eddie Lee and myself. Tom Jamieson on drums. Susan Rowland on drums. Recorded by Paul Gurney. Backing vocals by Barry Brennan, Eddie Lee and myself.  Trevor Knight on keys.  Drums by Tom Jamieson, if I remember right. The song was written in 1990, the year my dad died. I had a kind of music workshop going with a great group of people based in Finisklin, and this song was first recorded there. I remember Eddie McFarlane playing his Les Paul on the original, and Georgie Gorman, too. 

Cats 'n Dogs (with Those Nervous Animals featuring Susan Rowland)

This song came out of two different jam sessions; one in Castlecomer with me and Eddie Lee, and another piece of work by Barry Brennan and Eddie in Sligo (I think BB had the basic riff before that). The whole thing was later assembled as a song (with Nicky's help) in Nicky Ryan's place in Artane. That particular session, with 'Into the Stitches' 'He Can't Resist A Mystery', 'How does the Shopper Feel' and 'Praise' was an amazing time.

Myself and Eddie had a lot of the backing tracks demoed, and I had lyrics for verses 'when you see a picture in a storybook or a magazine...', etc, handwritten on bits of paper, and I had the two verse chords, a sixth (of course!) and sus four C. But I had not hardened up any melodies when we got to the studio. So basically Barry improvised the tunes, throwing in ideas here and there, and you can feel the looseness and freedom in the recording. 

We assembled the melody lines from different passes; Barry spent a whole day improvising and we spent another selecting and assembling the good bits. Sometimes Barry then performed the full verse, giving it what ever expression worked for him. The tape hiss in the background is real; it was recorded on a half-inch multi. Digital recording was just coming in in the mid eighties (This was mastered on to Beta video tape) so playing back multiple takes meant all hands to the mixing desk (and as little bouncing tracks as possible). For the chorus (with Nicky helping) we assembled lists of random things, wooly toys, cashew nuts etc, and although the bits of paper were now threatening to swamp the studio, Barry managed to fit a good few of these in. He also did the 'horn section' in the bridge, over the 'out in the sunshine' section, making trumpet sounds vocally. The basic groove was a Roland 808 and Eddies riff; this version (with kick replaced) was a remix we did in 1993 for the Rocket Ship release. 

The piece was originally in C; we slightly speeded up the demo to increase the feeling of lightness in the track, bringing it to C sharp; we always continued to play it in this key afterwards, no other one ever seemed right. 

Precious (Those Nervous Animals)

From Hyperspace produced by Bill Whelan. Those Nervous Animals; Barry Brennan on vocals, he also came up with some of the keyboard lines; Bill played the synth part on the recording; and added some new ideas to the parts. Eddie Lee is on bass, powerful bass lines by Ed in this song. Years previously I had read Daphne du Maurier... We had a band when I was in Boyle school called Willie and the Parasites, with (the late) Willie Conlon, Rory Conlon, Anthony Noone, Brendan McDermot and, betimes, Sean O Boyle, Pa Roche (now also sadly passed away) and others... Anyway Willie was a big Hitchcock aficinado, and we both agreed Manderlay needed to be in a song. He wrote one called On the Road to Manderlay; sadly I cannot remember much except Willie repeating the line Nazareth style, over the chords D and E. Anyway, this was my Manderlay song. I still like it. 

Rebecca (Those Nervous Animals)

Susan Rowland on vocals, Trevor Knight on piano. Tom Jamieson on drums. Eddie Lee was an important contributor to the ideas here, an inspiration and encouragement as well as playing bass. I played guitars. This is a demo, recorded live in the studio.

Once upon a time IT Sligo was the Regional Technical College. It had an Art Department, of sorts. I spent a few years there, it was an utterly unreal world, out of touch in many ways. I met many lovely people there. The place had limited resources and a limited sense of excitement; they were attempting to build educational credibility around the ears of the student population. Therefore it was a place of tension and conflict and sometimetimes cynicism and apathy. Generally, there was something weird in the energy in that college, I don't know if it was the neon lights in the ceilings or the water in the concrete. But to organise anything, to get anything done, was like dragging megalith stones. An air of entropy prevailed.

I went from the RTC to Dun Laoighre Art College. There was a TV and Video module in Dun Laoighre; it was incredibly competitive, cut-throat, even. We got to build little model sets and play at directing magazine programmes. We learnt about designing the news. 

Living in Sandycove, I remember going past the shopping centre on misty mornings trying to remember where my lectures were. Sligo and Dun Laoighre were very different places. In the end, I remember not going in some days and just sitting and watching the trains. 

I wonder what became of the guy who sang in church choirs?

Artschool (Featuring Susan Rowland)

With Eddie Lee and Barry Brennan (at various speeds) :). Was part of a proposed 'Theremin as a Musical' project with E. Lee.

The KGB Waltz (With Eddie Lee)

A new rough working demo of this new song.  

THE BALLAD OF MONICA LEWINSKY

There is an oracle somewhere
Who knows the distance between evidence and truth
Between innocence and youth
Between what we need and what turns us on
Thats Monica Lewinsky at the next table alright
But let her get on 
Let her get on with
Let her get on with her life

Reading his body language in the afterglow
To see how far a soul recedes 
Reading under pressure, reading under duress
Wearing an unwashed dress

Feeling the love move in your veins
Like smoke in a burning house
The families are all gathering at the sacred installations 
The hospital TV's are being switched out now

There is an oracle somewhere
Who knows the distance between innocence and youth
Between evidence and truth
Between what we want and what turns us on
That is really Monica Lewinsky at the next table alright
But let's let her get on 
Let her get on 
Let her get on with her life

The Ballad of Monica Lewinsky (Oracle Mix)

This is my take on a tune written by Thomas Connellan, one of the Connellan Brothers from Cloonamahon, Sligo in the sixteen hundreds. It was introduced to me by Austin McTiernan who sang the song at a talks and slides session we did jointly at the Carrowmore Megalithic centre to celebrate the Imbolc sunrise this year.  There is a definite Scottish flavour to the arrangement preserved by Bunting, but that's unsurprising; there was a continuous exchange between Ireland and in particular it seems, Sligo and Scotland in the era of the Gaelic harpists. One of the Connellans lived there for a number of years at a time when there was widespread persecution and difficulty for this ancient tradition in Ireland. 

By the way this melody is often confused with the better known Dawning of the Day on which Raglan Road was based. For this arrangement I matched the feel of it at 87 BPM with a couple of samples, one of me making clicking sounds with my mouth. I would like to record this properly at some stage. I hope the ghosts of the Connellans are cool with the power chords on guitar.

Dawn of Day (Connellan)

Gm D9 C7 Gm
Gm D9 C7 Fmaj7
Gm D9 C7 Gm
Gm D9 C7 Bb

Sometimes when doing commissioned work or a particular job, my mind wanders. This was a piece of writing which became a piece of music. The original text faded away.

Do the Roast Potato

COURAGE

Depending on the girl
Depending on the girl
Depending on the girl
Depending on the girl

And if you take the long way home
Nobody will know

Let us fly before my courage fails
Let us fly before the season pales
Balls go, gones go, bones go frail
I'm outta jail

My hardy lad. Well she can't keep secrets
She could run a thousand miles
She repeated 'lousy little I-read-Braille'
I'm outta jail 

And if you take the long way home
Nobody will know
And if you take the long way home
Nobody will know

You know that I get that, I just that way some times
You know that I get that, I just get like that sometimes

Depending on the girl
Depending on the girl
Depending on the girl
Depending on the girl

Courage

A lot of work on this done by Eddie Lee and Barry ...  a little demo of a song recorded in the 80's originally on the Rocket Ship CD.

Precious demo [2003]

I am a songwriter.  I am a founder member of the Sligo band Those Nervous Animals. I have been priveliged to work with some very fine singers and players across the years.  I love to collaborate, I love ideas.  Bedlam Suitcase is a recent project with Tara Baoth Mooney and Tom Jamieson.  Soundcloud page at https://soundcloud.com/Bedlam_Suitcase. Both Bedlam and Those Nervous Animals are released on The Knock Records label.

Pádraig Meehan

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