A new version of Lankum’s song ‘Hunting The Wren’ written for the Peaky Blinders film is trending worldwide.
‘Hunting The Wren – Immortal Man version’ features in the new Cillian Murphy-starring Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man film, having originally featured on Lankum’s 2019’s The Livelong Day album.
The song is trending at #4 on the Worldwide top 200 Shazam charts at time of writing and is #1 in Ireland and the UK this week.
Ian Lynch of the band posted about it on Insta. I used to go to Donnelly’s Hollow for a run about as a young lad who lived in Newbridge so this pleases me.
The Wrens of the Curragh were a community of women who lived in the Curragh plains for nearly seven decades of the 19th century, largely orphans because of the Famine, living collectively but harshly in underground spaces beneath the furze bushes to keep away the wind and cold.
The Wrens survived through sex work with nearby Curragh Camp-based army soldiers. They were outcasts of the the local community and refused service in shops.
From the original album’s liner notes:
“Hunting the Wren was written as part of a songwriting challenge between Ian Lynch and Lisa O’Neill. The challenge resulted in Lisa writing the amazing ‘Violet Gibson’, which she recorded for her album ‘Heard a Long Gone Song, and Ian writing this. It is based on a true story of the Wrens of the Curragh—a community of what author Rose Doyle called ‘unmarried mothers, free-thinkers, alcoholics, prostitutes, vagrants, ex-convicts and harvest workers. All of them women who had, in one way or another, put themselves beyond the pale of respectable society’, living rough on the plains of the Curragh, County Kildare, in the 19th century. The term ‘wren’ comes from the nest-like shelters that women lived in, and most of the information we have about their lives comes from the writing of James Greenwood, published in the Pall Mall Gazette in 1867. Much like the wren in Irish folklore and custom, these women suffered greatly.“
The new version of ‘Hunting The Wren’ is a match made in Irish music zeitgeist heaven with trad drone merchants Lankum collaborating with Fontaines D.C. singer Grian Chatten on the new verson – Radie and Grian’s voices together really fit well – and the song’s thudding beats and wistful orchestral arrangements suggests a closing chapter in a story…
But what do I know, I’ve never watched a second of Peaky Blinders in my life, but the soundtrack is epic and is heavy on Fontaines D.C as well.
The soundtrack features 36 tracks in total with five originals. Along with Grian Chatten singing ‘Puppet’ covering Massive Attack’s ‘Angel’ and Nick Cave’s ‘Red Right Hand’ there are songs from Amy Taylor from Amyl & the Sniffers, Nick Cave, McLusky and another cover of Massive Attack by Girl In The Year Above. Fontaines D.C’s Carlos O’Connell and Tom Coll also contribute.
‘Puppet’ also features on the worldwide chart at time of writing.
Lankum – Hunting The Wren Lyrics
[Verse 1]
Sharp is the wind
Cold is the rain
Harsh is the livelong day
Upon the wide open plain
[Verse 2]
By Donnelly’s hollow
Under sod, gorse and furze
There lies the young wren, oh
By the saints she was cursed
[Verse 3]
The wren is a small bird
How pretty she sings
She bested the eagle
When she hid in its wings
[Verse 4]
With sticks and with stones
All among the small mounds
They come from all over
To hunt the wren on the wide open ground
[Verse 5]
They flock round the soldiers
In their jackets so red
For barrack-room favours
Pennies and bread
[Verse 6]
The soldier is rough
In anger or fun
And he causes much bloodshed
With his big musket gun
[Verse 7]
There are birds of the earth
And beasts of the field
By spite and by fury
Are people revealed
[Verse 8]
Attacked in the village
Spat on in town
They come from all over
To hunt the wren on the wide open ground
[Verse 9]
The wren is a small bird
Though blamed for much woe
Her form is derided
Wherever she goes
[Verse 10]
With cold, want, and whiskey
She soon is run down
Her body paraded
On a staff through the town
[Verse 11]
A rag for her ceiling
The sod was her floor
She chose the cold open plain o’er
The dark workhouse door
[Verse 12]
With two broken wings
And feathers so brown
They come from all over
To hunt the wren on the wide open ground
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
