It’s been a good few while since we had a solo single from Irish singer-songwriter Patrick O’Laoghaire aka I Have A Tribe (with an acoustic version of ‘Songbirds’ last year and a collaboration with Sun Collective being his most recent output) since 2016 debut album Beneath A Yellow Moon.
Today, the artist is releasing ‘Teddy’s Song’, which comes after recent visible supports, with Villagers along with accompanying with brass player CARM at Bon Iver at London’s Wembley Arena and Dublin’s 3Arena shows in October.
The song features Patrick on vocals and piano joined by Conor O’Brien (Villagers) on trumpet, Oisín Walsh-Peelo on harp, Caimin Gilmore on bass and Dominic Mullan on drums.
The titular of the song refers to two Teddys, one his dog, who lives with Patrick in the west of Ireland, saying that his dog is one of his “most important teachers” given that “the dog’s only concern is what is happening exactly at this moment. Mostly he is concerned with playing and responding.”
The song itself is about togetherness, and was inspired by another Teddy, his uncle:
“Teddy is my uncle who was very handsome and very gentle and very loved. He had working sheepdogs called Cap and Prince and Sylvie and they always listened to him. Teddy is also the name of my dog, a sheepdog who wandered in the gate one day and stayed. He had that name already, when he arrived. He is very handsome and very loved and he never listens. The dog lives his own way and I learn a lot from the dog. Sometimes he looks at me very deeply for a long time and I wonder if he knows that he’s the teacher and I’m the student. I asked him this once, and he went and got a stick and told me to throw it.”
The music video was filmed and directed by Emilija Jefremova in the coastal landscape of Co. Mayo, specifically Louisburgh, where Patrick brings the eponymous Teddy every morning.
In caser you were wondering what O’Laoghaire has been up to:
“I trained to work with young people, in a charity organisation called The Soar Foundation that runs workshops exploring how every person has their own voice, their own story, their own adventure to live. We’d facilitate the conversations, but generally would get out of the way and just listen to their stories and shared experiences. And their wisdom. I learned an awful lot from these young people. Certainly it helped me back towards music, and returning to my own voice there,”
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