Christy Moore is simply an icon. Ireland’s best-loved singer, a social commentator, providing a moral compass on issues of conscience, a Seanchai, a purveyor of comic tales, and officially Ireland’s greatest living musician.
I make this Christy’s 25th Studio album, and the quality level from the maestro shows no signs of dipping. Thirteen songs of relevance that run the spectrum of emotions, provoking tears and joy. Songs of relationships, of wars, loss and longing, domestic abuse, alcoholism, and addiction.
Album opener ‘Boy in the Wild’, written with the sadly passed Willy Page, is a deceptively simple, but wonderfully moving tale of the bond between Father and Son, and will be seen as an instant classic in the Moore canon. Christy’s voice is as strong and as sweet as on any recording. The fact that his son, Andy adds backing vocals, only adds extra poignancy to the song:
Boy in the wild world, can’t you see
It’s the way it is, life holds many sorrows
Lift up your heart, lean on your dad
When you’re not strong enough, he’ll carry you home
Christy has long been recognised for his support of other artists. A Lazarus Soul have already attained a large following with Brianny Brannigan’s wonderfully brutal, yet tender human tales, but when Christy Moore decides to cover two of your songs on his album, there is a different degree of recognition. Christy’s mellow voice adds an extra layer of tension and poignancy to ‘Black and Amber’, a harsh depiction of domestic abuse, and ‘Lemon Sevens’ a searing depiction of addiction and the tragic consequences encountered by many.
The hapless Sky reporter Rob Wotton, who had the temerity to suggest the Irish needed to educate themselves, following pro-republican chants by the female football team, is himself schooled into the next decade by Christy’s sardonic chronicle of some of the crimes and injustices of the British.
Christy has been singing ‘Palestine’ live for some time now. The horrific loss of life amongst the Palestinians is met with a hushed respect in the live setting. On record, it loses none of it’s power or the message for the world to wake to the ongoing horrific scenes in ‘the Holy land’.
The conflict in Ukraine also features on the album, in a spoken word piece written by Mancunian, Mike Harding, ‘Sunflowers’
She confronted soldiers on her street,
Ignoring guns, grenades, and gibbering headsets
She offered them a handful of Sunflower seeds,
Keep them in your pockets boys
That flowers may blossom from your graves
Forever a monument to the children you have murdered
And the families you have destroyed.
Cork is celebrated for it’s music, tradition, and people in the up-lifting ‘The Big Marquee’.There is a moving tribute to Lyra McKee, who lost her young life for being ‘In the right place, at the wrong time’. The music is stripped back, leaving the words and Christy’s peerless, insistently, sweet tones to draw the listener in.
As he approaches his 80th year, Christy is producing essential music with passion.
The album proves, if further proof is required, that Christy remains the king of Irish music.
Long may he reign!