The debut album from Rua Rí – Cobh folk singer-songwriter Seán Damery – produced by Kean Kavanagh and a fresh turn up genre wise for the books on Soft Boy Records.
Rooted in specific places – Cobh, Cork, nearby fields and familiar streets – and in the emotions those places hold.
We covered his announcement back in March; the singles that have come since, ‘Johnny Workman’ and ‘Makeover’, have confirmed him as one of the most distinctive voices in Irish folk right now.
Here’s a track-by-track for the debut album from Seán.
- Johnny Workman
Johnny workman was a game we played in my house when we were kids. You’d stand up on the mantelpiece and try to act out some occupation in a kind of a charades way. It became a mantra of mine when I was very unemployed.
- Easy On The Eye
I recorded this one in Clay Castle out in Youghal a good while ago. I sat on it for a while and then asked my friend Finn Cusack Holden to play the guitar on it. I wrote it in the summer. I think it’s a lovely summer song. I robbed the chords from Tony Joe White.
- Snow
I learned this new picking pattern with the triplets and wrote like four songs with it and ‘Snow’ was the best one. I wrote it at home during COVID. It was meant to be called ‘The Ballad From the Belly of The Beast’ but someone on YouTube talked me out of it.
- Not so brave now are ya
This song is about pressure I suppose. I really love this recording, probably the most. I started writing that on a piano in my mam’s friend’s house that I was staying in while recording the album in London at like 4am in the morning. The piano and drums were both recorded with an iPhone. I love it.
- Sitting on The Wall beside You
This is a friendship/getting older song. It’s probably the oldest song on the album. We recorded this one 4 times but I think we got it right in the end. I recorded this version up in Belfast with Jamie Bishop. It’s a nice live take with my friend Stéphane Petiet on the double bass.
- Fields Of Glass
I always loved the way Alex Turner wrote really poetically about very mundane stuff in the early Arctic Monkeys songs. This was my attempt at doing that. It’s an ode to Bucko’s Field where me and my friends used to drink in Cobh.
- Wonderland
Wonderland is another song about a place in Cobh called Marloag Woods. We used to camp there in the summers over the years and go swimming and dancing and all that. I think this song captures those nights well in fairness to me.
- Makeover
I wrote this song on Shandon Bridge one day busking when I was getting no money off anyone. It’s a song about getting me nails done, no metaphors in this one. I realised after that I was just singing the ‘Britches Full Of Stitches’ which is one of the first songs you will learn on the tin whistle if you do.
- Fish Go Deep
This is my favourite song that I’ve written. I’d say it is a love song. I was writing it for a while. Starting in Inis Oírr and eventually finishing the words in London the day we recorded it. Some bad tin whistle playing on this one.
- There’ll be liners floating down The Holy Ground
This is a song that my granny and her friends used to sing when they were children in the 1930s. Many a liner has floated down The Holy Ground since. She was from there and used to sing me that song, I recorded it down The Holy Ground and all on the pier.
Live Shows
- May 1 – Charlie’s – Cork, IE*
- May 2 – Anam Cara – West Cork, IE
May 3 – The Hut – Dublin, IE [SOLD OUT]- May 7 – Charlie Malone’s – Limerick, IE*
- May 29 – Bandon Folk Club – Cork, IE
- June 25 – MOTH Club – London, UK
- Sep 13 – Dún Laoghaire Folk Festival – Dublin, IE
- *free entry
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.
