For the last few years it's been "Scott Miller Said" by Irish band The Revenants.
So I was thrilled to come across an article in an newspaper calling it one of the greatest Irish songs ever.
It's from The Revenenats second album (Septober Nowonder)-named after a Laurel & Hardy movie)) and was written by one of my favourite songwriters Stephen Ryan.
Stephen is formely of The Stars Of Heaven who I used to go and see around Dublin in the mid eighties.
I was never so thrilled as the day the guy at Setanta showed me a letter from Stephen saying he loved my stuff.
I went on to become friends with The Revenants, the best bunch of guys you could ever meet.
They did a live version of my song 'Knowing' once which soared. I get a thank you on their first album, why I'm not sure ?
Don, the keyboard player from The Revs and Conor Brady, who played guitar with them, did live Brian stuff around the time of Bring Trouble.
Anyway Scott Miller is/was the singer with US bands Game Theory and The Loud Family but "Scott Miller Said" is more about the death of Stephen's dad. It's just so evocative, kills me every time.
Great 'Scott': the unsung masterpiece of Irish rock
Saturday August 11 2007
So what's the greatest ever Irish rock song? There's certainly no
shortage of albums purporting to be the definitive compilation of our
best homegrown tracks. A Sugar Loaf of plastic has been used up in the
endeavour. There seems to be a broad consensus about the songs that
deserve to be roped-off and given the red-carpet treatment.
And mostly with good reason: usual suspects like Phil Lynott's Old
Town, The Blades's Downmarket, The Undertones' Teenage Kicks, Sinead's
Nothing Compares 2 U and U2's perennials all deserve their lofty
status.
But there's a level of predictability about the whole venture. It's
like being given a tour of a museum by a tired tour guide jaded from
recounting the same spiel over and over.
If I was the guide, I'd point the torch down the badly-lit secret
passageway that is The Revenants's back catalogue. In particular,
there's one song that I keep coming back to. It's Scott Miller Said.
Written by lead singer Stephen Ryan, it's the closing track on the
band's 1999 swansong, Septober Nowonder.
Dubliner Ryan already achieved a degree of fame in the 1980s with his
previous band the Stars Of Heaven, whose albums were re-released only
last year on Independent Records. But Ryan's second coming in the
1990s was aptly named. A revenant is a ghostly figure -- usually one
that has come back from the dead. And he wrote the song after his
father had passed away.
In the first part of the song, Ryan details the sights and sounds of a
leisurely stroll through his neighbourhood in a Joycean stream of
consciousness. The journey begins with a quote from the song he's
listening to on his walkman -- Scott Miller being the singer with Game
Theory, a cultish US indie guitar band from the 1990s.
The mood is upbeat -- there's also a reference to Simon and
Garfunkel's 59th Street Bridge Song, that joyous celebration of the
carefree life. Our narrator observes the circus literally coming to
town -- they're offloading their gear from their caravan. Next he
passes "the empty trailer by the gold-top gates".
Then on "Past the frozen fields/ And the fat white geese/ What are
they saying in the house of the fleurs de lis?" he wonders, observing
the orange glow of a stranger's living room.
The musical accompaniment, meanwhile, revolves around Conor Brady's
curious hanging guitar chords that linger like a Gothic Thin Lizzy
riff played in slow motion, while Don Ryan's Hammond vibes tinkle in
the background, like sprinkled stardust.
Then comes Ryan's soulful guitar solo, which touches the clouds. In
the second half of the song, machine strings add yet more layers. And
the lyrics take a poignant turn. There are summer visits to St Luke's
Hospital, and it's clear that the song is actually a meditation on
mortality. "We'll have time enough to remember the ones who leave/
Though they hardly care to go," sings Ryan.
The journey ends, as all journeys end, in the cemetery -- specifically
"In the garden of Mulrayne/Under the cedar tree".
Those lingering chords hang heavy again at the end, like a black cloud
about to burst. We're left with a bittersweet feeling: a loved one has
slipped away, but has been honoured in the remembering.
You play the song again and listen to the first verses with a
different ear. The first half appears to want to celebrate the present
moment. Nature is very much a central character, and the changing
seasons are noted. And great music, too, is the soundtrack.
The listener then starts to ponder: are these the same frozen fields
he once walked with his father? Did they routinely pass the house with
the gold-top gates when he was a child? Were there days at the circus?
Is he actually casting a nostalgic eye on life, on death, as he passes
by? One is reminded of the final paragraphs of John McGahern's Memoir,
where the author remembers walking the laneways of Leitrim with his
mother when he was a young boy.
It's clear that the remembered landscape is far more vivid and
enchanting to the author than the modern-day geographical reality. And
Ryan's elegy has a similarly charged, evocative quality, despite only
running to a few verses.
In an idle moment a number of years ago, I visited Scott Miller's
website and posted a note in the fan forum, wondering had the singer
ever heard the song which bears his name.
I didn't expect to hear back -- he didn't appear to be too active in
music any more. But months later he replied. Yes, he had heard the
song; someone in the States had told him about it and he eventually
got his hands on the Revenants album. Scott Miller said he felt
honoured, and that he really loved the song.
ENDS.
http://www.independent.ie/entertainment/music/great-scott-the-unsung-masterp.html-of-irish-rock-1056662.html