When Seamus Heaney died last year, Gary Lightbody wrote in memoriam, about an invisible tribe – “people who act as creative touchstones. People of profound light, love and kindness that simply and maybe even without their knowledge make us and the world around them better”. Lightbody would make Heaney the chief of that invisible tribe.
BBC Arts Extra presenter and custodian of things cultural here Marie-Louise Muir, reading that tribute at the time, was deeply moved by the sentiments therein, in particular this concept of an invisible tribe that could connect us all through some elusive, mysterious and creative thread. Tasked with curating the On Home Ground Festival, she opened the evening ‘In Conversation’ by relaying how an email was sent via Lightbody’s management. A few days later, a reply received.
The ultimate and absolute professional, Ms Muir’s voice may have betrayed a minor crack of emotion as she told the audience how she read the reply over and over with tears in her eyes. The Snow Patrol and Tired Pony front-man had accepted the invitation to an evening, In Conversation, to honour his hero and muse.
And as they say, the rest is history, for here we are, under a marquee, in a garden like Eden, in Magherafelt. Of all the marquees in all the world, I’m glad I’m in this one. Sure, where else would you rather be on a Saturday evening, than sharing this experience with your own home-grown girl-child beside you?
I’m not certain, but I wondered if Lightbody’s spoken voice was cautioned with emotion, as he explained the impact of Heaney’s poetry on the young man at Campbell College, under the invoking tutelage of Mister McKee. (In fact, I may admit, to a minor onset of left eye leakage until I caught myself on). Mister McKee is in the audience – a shout out to Mister McKee to identify himself! Just lovely. What a thrill that must be, to know you’ve carved the artist’s psyche.
Poor Mister McKee, Lightbody explains, had to proof read and endure the fledgling writer’s awkward teenage-angst poetry. He would kindly edit and correct errant spelling when and where necessary. One poem left on teacher’s desk, titled ‘Pier Pressure’ was handed back with a line through the first word and ‘peer’ inserted instead. (I don’t know, but ‘Pier Pressure’ works for me).
‘In Conversation’ is precisely how it is and how it should be. Relaxed, revealing, honest and oftentimes, funny. Marie-Louise Muir is perhaps my favourite voice on Radio Ulster. She interviews her guests always with a personal grace and dignity, because frankly, they are her guests. She gets the best from people, because she goes there, politely. Yet she’s not backwards in coming forwards, when it comes to digging deeper, for the good turf.
At one point, I am listening very carefully, and then, I know not when or why, all I hear is their voices – Marie Louise Muir’s perfectly rounded vowels and Lightbody’s North Down lilting intonation – an ebb and flow, a peculiar melody. Quite remarkable, unexpectedly hypnotic. I pull myself back into the seat.
Dear daughter is hanging on every word. This year she will compare and contrast Heaney’s ‘The Burial at Thebes’ with Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’. Imagine that, the wheel has turned full circle.
Thirty odd years ago, I was pouring my heart out over these poems with Mister O’Kane, and later, on the top floor of Number 2 University Square, in what was, they said, Heaney’s old room. In those boxes, were his books. I always fancied a nosey, but didn’t dare.
I’m off on one again. I tune back in.
Marie-Louise asks Lightbody if he has a view on the Scottish referendum. I suppose it’s topical, I suppose it would be remiss not to ask. Diplomatically, the question is side-stepped as it should. ‘Whatever you say, say nothing’ springs to mind. Then, in my head, I hear the opening lines of ‘Act of Union’ – ‘To-night, a first movement, a pulse‘. Funny, how these words stay tucked away, ingrained. I am reminded, that Heaney’s poetry spans every season, eventuality and emotion. It will ultimately overcome the tests of time.
The conversation flows back to the death of the naturalist (to where it all began with ‘Digging’) and his legacy.
In the garden earlier, I found ‘A Herbal’ – Heaney’s poem from ‘Human Chain’ that reminds us, starkly, of our mortality. ‘Human Chain’, Heaney’s twelfth and final collection, are poems of reflection and connection, linking the pain of separation with memory.
Lightbody has written five new songs for this evening that echo such sentiments – each a hankering back to hearth and home, to the people that matter most. A homage to childhood, these are songs of innocence and experience, linked expertly. The first song, is not new, but has only been played ‘live’ before on American radio. ‘Read Heaney to Me’ is a romantically warm and charming opening to the set. ‘I Think of Home’ recollects childhood train journeys from Bangor to Belfast, never-ending car trips to Derry to visit family. ‘The Church’ is a poignant and beautiful reflection on the death of his much-loved Derry granny.
The left eye is leaking again, for I’d a childhood split between detached East Belfast and steep-terraced Derry. Some secret portal in these songs takes me back to those endless drives – how many more miles mummy? Sibling elbows dig in ribs – Toome, Castledawson, Maghera, Dungiven, infinity and beyond, up steep icy hills I feared the car would slide back down and we’d all be drowned or done for.
This portrait of a granny who radiates light, love and laughter invokes mine own milk woman of human kindness, who’s eyes never lost their light, who’s devotion to what’s right was infectious, who’s mysterious skin never seemed to wrinkle or age. (I thought it must be because she never said a bad word about anybody and went to mass every day. She said it was Oil of Ulay).
Lightbody’s linking anecdotes, delivered with likeable warmth and humour, acutely echo those Derry myths and legends my parents told us. These anecdotes are relevant. They paint the scene, they set the tone for his lyrical ballads. He recounts his father’s story of that special day, after the War, when bananas arrived in Derry. His dad, cycling home in glee from the shop (which was coincidentally owned by Snow Patrol’s Jonny McDaid’s grandfather – that’s Derry for you) peeled open the first ever yellow fruit, only for it to fall from the handle bars straight down a drain.
It must have been a landmark day in Derry. I recall, vividly, my mum’s tales about the day bananas arrived in the Brandywell. Strange fruit, bananas. Until the age of reason, I was convinced my kin lived up a tree in Rosemount. Strange fruit, indeed.
There are knots in my gullet now, I wasn’t expecting this – to be taken back more decades than I dare, face to face with people and places and things. That’s the gift of the bard, to keep alive tradition, to invoke the memory of the tribe.
‘Like Golden Waves’ – a nod to the sun’s dying rays at the end of the day – sees Lightbody as small boy, senses wide open and over-awed, playing in the garden. Something here is more Blake than Heaney, “cause god is always in the trees”. (I am thinking now, of a non-authenticated anecdote about the small boy William Blake, seeing god in the trees, runs home to tell his God-fearing father, who gives him a scalping and says never to speak of such things again. That went well, clearly).
Lightbody’s introduction to the next song has the audience hooked and hungry. ‘It’s a Day Like That’ puts in song, a powerful memory of the day, near Lough Beg not far from where we sit, that the six year old and his dad were shot at long range, by some brute aiming at a low-flying duck. The imagery is spell-binding – the traumatised boy and the bloody face of a father. The song conveys the strong male presence of his father; firm but kind, the man who makes us who we are, the parent who may not shape our bones but shapes our being ever more. This is a song about the unbreakable bond, between father and child, and the role reversal, that somehow comes around.
It’s a love song, to paternity. Throughout the set, my eyes were drawn to that middle portrait of Heaney in later years, the larger than life physiognomy taking centre-stage. Maybe it’s just me, but the expression seems to change with the colours of the lights – pink, indigo, blue, green – those deep incisive eyes, seeing things – mesmerising, somehow, pleading. A fly lands on his high brow, it lingers there, then flees.
The last song is a love song to Ireland and its encompassing beauty – a rose, that draws blood, a rose, by any other name.
That’s it – done. Didn’t know what to expect but hadn’t quite expected to be moved and have memories dug up like this. I was back on home ground, for one day only. Outside, I hear the sound of distant drums, down on Main Street. There’s a band parade coming. Grace notes linger. I do a nifty U-turn and get on the road, before it’s closed.