Christy Business

He hasn’t gone away you know. For a time, it looked as if Christy Moore had opted for a back seat on the Irish music scene, but now he’s back with a new album, Burning Times. It contains his most searingly political basket of recordings for years, ranging from his acclaimed rendering of Dylan’s ‘The Lonesome Death Of Hattie Carroll’ to provocative songs by Phil Ochs, Richard Thompson, John Spillane, Ger Wolfe, Morrissey, Natalie Merchant, Joni Mitchell and others.

When I join him in a private room at Dublin’s Clarion Hotel, Moore and his current co-conspirator, guitarist and producer Declan Sinnott (once of Horslips), are on a high after a live performance on Gerry Ryan’s 2FM show. They are still playing away, Sinnott’s sinewy guitar licks decorating Moore’s more solid style. Reluctantly, I suspect, they put their guitars aside and gather round for their hotpress interview.
JACKIE HAYDEN: So, you record the album and then you do a pile of interviews. Is it a chore?
Christy Moore: For me, it boils down to the way the interviewer takes it. It would be a chore if the interview didn’t engage you. When that happens it can be interesting because you get different perspectives.
Declan Sinnott: We did Gerry Ryan this morning. That was terrific.
Christy: We got to play five live songs on the radio, which was great.
There’s a richness and vocal presence on the new album, and a consistency of sound. Do you have a similar approach to recording each track?
Declan: Tim Martin recorded it in the front room of my house in Cork. There’s nothing tricky about it. We always start with a live performance.
Christy: We both play together, and that’s the bones of the track. The more we get it in the first take the better. Tim’s done the best recordings of my voice, the nearest I’ve ever got to the way I hear my voice when I’m singing by myself. It’s great to hear that coming out of the speakers.
For what reason might you leave recorded material off?
Christy: This is the third time we recorded this album. The other two times, it just wasn’t right.
Declan: You can’t name that thing that’s missing. You just know when it’s there and that the job’s done.
I feel there’s a restrained anger, a political anger in the album that I haven’t heard from Christy Moore for a long time. Is that a fair comment?
Christy: It’s a fair comment. I’ve no problem with you saying that. If you compare the songs on Burning Times with the songs on the last album, [the new material] would be blunter. And there are things on [the album] that I do get angry about when I sing them, even when I’m singing other people’s words.
Such as?
Declan: ‘Hattie Carroll’?
Christy: Yeah, ‘The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll’, for one. Some nights I get really angry singing that.
What provokes that anger?
Christy: The sheer injustice of it all. That one man aged 24 could be so confident that he would get away with murdering this poor black woman. It still happens today. It happens in Ireland. That’s where the anger comes from. It’s as much about what’s going on today as about what happened 40 years ago.
But there’s nothing on the album that relates to Ireland of today, is there?
Christy: Everything relates to Ireland of today!
There are some topics, like the issue of government corruption, that don’t get much coverage from our songwriters today, although those issues are widely covered in the media and in other art-forms. Why do you think that is?
Christy: Maybe it’s fear, or maybe it’s that there’s so much of it that people want to escape from it. I don’t know.
Declan: Damien Dempsey does it.
Christy: I can’t speak for other writers, but my writing has dried up. I’ve tried to write songs about different things, corruption issues and scandals, but it hasn’t come out. That’s my excuse. I tried very, very hard to write a song about Johnny Carty [shot dead by Garda marksmen in 2000]. What I came up with, I couldn’t sing.
There don’t seem to be songs coming from America dealing with current political issues either.
Declan: It’s much more difficult to live in America than here. Dylan wrote ‘Hattie Carroll’ at a time of incredible political upheaval there. We don’t have that.
Christy: Or maybe they’re writing those songs in America and they don’t get heard. Jim Page [a US agitprop folk singer] doesn’t get heard. So it’s not that the writers aren’t engaging with those issues, but that the writers we get to hear aren’t.
You’ve dedicated the album to Rachel Corrie (an American activist ruthlessly killed in Gaza by Israeli forces). Why her specifically?
Christy: Just the sheer image of an Israeli earthmover driving across a woman armed only with a megaphone. It’s a powerful image of the times we live in. I was deeply affected by that particular action. Five Irish writers have written songs about Rachel Corrie, but unfortunately not songs I Charlie Murphy because it’s the most powerful song I could sing for Rachel Corrie.
Does it help you personally to express that anger, like a form of therapy?
Christy: I have a strong desire within me to remember Rachel Corrie. I would like everybody to know what happened to her. She was a very important woman.
The album is dedicated to a woman, and there’s the song about Hattie Carroll. Another is ‘Motherland’ and Joni Mitchell’s ‘The Magdalene Laundries’. Is there any significance to the female angle?
Christy: I’m sure there is! I’m very happy about it anyway.
But what is the significance?
Christy: Years ago I said that only men send me songs.
Declan: You two are talking about different things. Christy, Jackie’s referring to the subject matter, not the writers.
Christy: Like I said, I don’t know what the significance might be. The attitudes I learned growing up as a kid in Newbridge in Kildare towards and about women have changed an awful lot. It’s essential we hear as many women’s voices as we hear men’s voices.
Did you work out a list of songs before you recorded the album?
Declan: Gerry Ryan was talking to us as if there’s a theme to the album. So the songs we picked must have common links that we don’t even see. I like to think a lot goes on that we don’t notice.
Christy: At this stage in our lives we are both fairly particular about what we do. Declan is more clued into songs than most musicians I’ve played with. They’re usually involved with what they’re playing, whereas with Declan the song comes first. We would certainly engage in that kind of discourse about songs that are brought to the table.
Does that discourse ever turn to conflict?
Christy: There might be occasional tetchiness.
Declan: Eventually it comes down to whether Christy wants to sing the song or not, and that’s the end of it. There’s one song on Burning Times that I don’t like.
Which one?
Declan: ‘Changes’, the Phil Ochs song. I think it’s too ‘60s hippy-dippy, like ‘The Windmills Of Your Mind’ except even worse! But I’m happy to play on it. I found it difficult to play on it because I wasn’t convinced.
Christy: I completely disagree with him. I think he just doesn’t get it.
In the sleeve-note for Richard Thompson’s ‘Beeswing’ Christy writes “when the anoraks waffle on I yawn and turn a deaf ear”. Explain that.
Christy: I’m probably slightly out of order there. I’m not talking about my own anoraks, because I love my anoraks, but Richard Thompson’s anoraks, who will waffle on all night about who the song is about. 'It’s about her, no, it’s about somebody else, blah blah blah.' To me, it doesn’t matter.
Why do you love your own anoraks?
Christy: I suppose I’m tickled by the fact that there are people around the world who think as much about the songs I sing as I do.
How do you feel about people misunderstanding or misinterpreting a song?
Christy: It doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
Even if they totally get it arseways?
Christy: At this time in my life I would enjoy that. There was a time when I would mount a high horse! But who’s to say if my interpretation is right? I love the idea of three people taking something completely different from the same song. It’s healthy.
Declan: Of course if somebody heard Hattie Carroll and said 'wasn’t it great that the white guy got off' – that would be offensive.
Christy: But wouldn’t I be wasting my time letting somebody like that annoy me? Like what am I supposed to do, get angry and hit him over the head with a hurley? What can I say to somebody like that? (Laughs)
Declan: Look at the way Springsteen’s ‘Born in The USA’ was totally misinterpreted. That must have really pissed him off.
Christy: Do you think so? He still sings it, still puts up with the reaction.
Declan: He sings it now acoustically, without all the pomp of the rock version, and deliberately tries to get across the other part of the song.
Christy: Okay, okay.
From the references to the notes on the album I reckon you won’t be visiting Dundrum Shopping Centre.
Christy: I’ve never been to it. I think we’ve enough shopping centres now. Why do you ask?
Because of the reference in the sleeve-notes to the song ‘Peace In The Valley Once Again’.
Christy: What does it say?
Jesus, you wrote them, Christy. It says “Beyond the Liffey Valley and the Dundrum concrete centre / waits another time, just as night follows day”.
Christy: So what’s your question? That I don’t like it?
Yeah. Is it the affluence that it signifies, or that it’s eating into nature?
Christy: I believe we’re heading towards some kind of precipice, and the whole country operates now purely on gain and commerce and profit. Nothing is done any more for the good. The Dundrum Shopping Centre was not built to provide what people need. It was built entirely for people who are already very wealthy.
Can people not accuse you of that to some extent?
Christy: No doubt you will!
You’ll be doing gigs at The Point. You’ll enjoy doing them but you’ll make money out of them.
Christy: Absolutely.
Declan: There are two purposes for us playing The Point, playing music being one of them. But with the shopping centre, there’s only the money making aspect to it.
Christy: If we were doing The Point purely to maximise profits, we’d play in the largest configuration it has. But we’re making it smaller. Not that I feel that I have to justify it to you. But if you have any other observations like that, wheel them out, because I’d love to respond. That’s when I find interviews interesting.
The subject of alcoholism is covered in the song ‘Butterfly (So Much Wine)’. It’s also the subject of Declan Lynch’s new novel, The Rooms, in which he goes into a lot of detail about what goes on at AA meetings. That’s supposed to be sacrosanct, so is it a good thing to do that?
Christy: From what I know about the organisation about whom we speak, one of the traditions is that you don’t break your anonymity.
Does that mean that Lynch’s book doesn’t help?
Christy: I haven’t read it, but I’m sure he’s an honest man. All I can tell you is that I’m an alcoholic and I’ve received help from others. AA has been running on these principles since 1935 and they seem to work very well. If I were a member, I would choose to follow the tradition. This is too important to play around with or to become a ping-pong ball for the media.
Writing or singing songs about important issues like, say injustice, is itself of great value, but is there any sense of frustration that that’s all you can do?
Christy: Well, I also vote. And I also protest, and I also walk out, and I would also march.
Would you vote for Sinn Fein?
Christy: (pausing) I might.
Would you be bothered by the bodies that haven’t been found?
Christy: (after longer pause) I might be.
If I said you would vote for Sinn Fein would you say, “stop, you’re wrong”?
Christy: I can vote for whoever I want to and I’d weigh everything up. But I’ve no intention of telling you who I’ll vote for.
You were recently stopped by the British authorities under their anti-terrorism legislation. Were you surprised by that?
Christy: On the day, I was. I was very surprised by the nature of the interrogation and where it went and what they said and what they did. It was quite blatantly obvious that this was harassment. There were 12 guitar cases in the car and they never even opened the boot. So, were they seriously worried about me being a terrorist?
Why did they stop you?
Christy: I’ve never been given an answer.
What did they want from you? Was there something implicit in the questions they asked?
Christy: It was clear that to me, and to the other man who was with me, that they were really trying to be invasive. They asked us about our children, our parents, the houses we lived in, how many bathrooms were in the house, what do your mother and father do, how much do they earn. They wanted to know where were we playing.
When they searched, was it the full anal search?
Christy: No. There was a fairly cursory body search. But there was no finger up the arse or anything. They examined our hand luggage and our cases, but didn’t go near the van full of instruments. They went through all my lyrics and the songs I was working on. They quoted lyrics to me. I was learning ‘Hurt’ at the time, the song Johnny Cash sang, and they asked me “Why are you singing the word ‘needle’?” One guy kept going out and coming back in with new questions, so I got the feeling the interrogation was being watched.
Presumably there’s nothing you can do at the time except put up with it?
Christy: Absolutely. And we didn’t know if we were going to be held further. They brought in this interesting document to sign after two hours, to say we were being given the opportunity now to have a solicitor. But if you said you didn’t want a solicitor, they can still hold you.
Were you afraid?
Christy: I was frightened.
Under those circumstances, do you have to stay cool and not provoke them?
Christy: I tried to stay as calm as I could. The other man got angry because he was questioned about his mother
and father who were deceased. They were very cool and calm and calculated.
Is there anything you can do afterwards?
Christy: I made an official complaint to the Irish Embassy and the Department of Foreign Affairs. I did get some correspondence back, but it was all hogwash. Another aspect of this is that it’s happening to a lot of people who don’t say anything about it, who don’t have the ability or the contacts. Imagine that happening to a couple in their 70s, who’ve never been outside Ireland? I was really rattled by it.
You were written out of Horslips history, Declan, during the band's reunion last year.
Declan: Well, I can understand that. I didn’t hear any of it. I just lost interest in Horslips. I kind of wish I hadn’t been in it. I don’t see the music as having any real value, including my own work with them. I don’t mean to be insulting to the other guys. I’d prefer if people were asking me about Southpaw, which I was in with Jimmy McCarthy. It was better music.
Did you watch Scorsese’s Dylan documentary?
Christy: Every second! One of the television highlights of my life.
What stood out for you?
Christy: Being able to look at Dylan’s face close-up for two hours and the way he responded to questions. Some of the footage was brilliant. How hard he must have worked in his early days to sound the way he sounded. The lines of his songs and the way he responded to all the cruelty that was heaped on him. I could go on.
Christy, you too went against the grain and were often criticised for it. Do you see a link between you and Dylan?
Christy: I was inspired by him. He’s the greatest songwriter.
Are you just being modest?
Christy: Absolutely not. Some of the [songs] I wrote I think are great, but only five or six of them. But every time he goes to the toilet, he comes back with a triple-album!
Which of your own songs are “great”?
Christy: I think ‘Lisdoonvarna’ is a one-off. Some of the writing I did then I can’t do any more. I really like ‘The Two Conneeleys’, and ‘The Time Has Come’, and ‘Strangeways’. But I write songs on this island, Dylan writes songs on the world.
You do Morrissey’s ‘America, I Love You’ on the album. Is that because of the quality of the song or of its anti-American sentiment?
Christy: I’d like to hear what Declan has to say about this, but the biggest thing about the song for me is that it says “I love America”. There are things about America that scare me. I told my wife I wish I could write a song that would reflect the way I feel about America, its culture, its people, my American friends, and she introduced me to Morrisey’s and it was on the button.
What about our Government’s complicity with America’s war in Iraq. Do you feel strongly about that?
Christy: Yeah. I sang from the anti-war platform. I marched and I sang.
But marching and singing don’t change governments.
Christy: I think it does change things. But governments are a lot more powerful now. A lot more subtle, with a lot more machinery with which to control us. As well as the police and the army, we also have the media. Our minds are controlled by television and by radio. They actually have psychologists creating the story now. The world is a much more frightening place, but I have to believe that everything we do affects change, even if it’s only with those who hear us.
Some might argue that, in Ireland today, we can’t handle poverty and we can’t handle affluence. If this is so, what’s wrong with us?
Christy: That’s very general, a huge big sweeping statement. But the country has changed a lot. There’s a lot of horrible stuff going on at the moment, a lot of horrible attitudes. You see people flaunting their wealth and behaving really badly. It’s a bad thing when people behave like pricks. But there are good aspects to the new-found wealth as well. But then, there’s the hospital situation. Oh, I don’t know. It’s so complex. I’m probably better on specific questions. Ask me the specific questions and ask Declan the general ones! (laughs)
I will. What do you think of Minister McDowell’s desire to have seven-year-old kids liable for criminalisation?
Christy: I can’t believe this man. I cannot believe this man is Minister for Justice? Justice? He seems like a very, very dangerous man. I’m hoping he’ll be moved out shortly. I can’t understand it.
Would you have any objection if any of your children wanted to become professional musicians?
Christy: No. This is the best job in the world. I’d recommend it to anybody. I get to sing every day, to go around the world. I can afford to play with this man here (indicates Declan). It’s such a joy to share my work with this man.
What about people who might say it isn’t a real job at all?
Declan: Wouldn’t they love it if their job wasn’t a job at all? I wish everybody thought that about the jobs they do. Wouldn’t it be great if people liked their work so much that they were rushing into the factory to make shoes or whatever?
How do you feel about Christy Moore tribute acts?
Christy: (claps his hands in applause) More power to them. Sure, I did that with the Clancy Brothers! ‘Jug Of Punch’, ‘Rossin’ The Bow’, ‘Brennan On The Moor’, ‘Whiskey In The Jar’. I was trying to sing like Liam Clancy.
How do you move on from that?
Christy: Then you hear Luke Kelly. Then you hear Ewan McColl. You’re movin’ on all the time. You hear Dylan. I’m still influenced by what I hear, although I never copy anybody. I take that bit of influence and add that bit of paint from my own pot. The sound of my voice changes all the time. My children have introduced me to Kraftwerk and Air.
What about audience expectations that you have to do certain songs, maybe ‘Lisdoonvarna’ or ‘The Voyage’?
Christy: About 80% of the time we do ‘Lisdoonvarna’. ‘The Voyage’, 5%. Sometimes it depends on the way people ask. Some people order you to sing something, and that only makes you determined not to sing it.
Mick Hanly says there are songs you just grow out of. Do you feel that?
Christy: Oh God, yes. There are hundreds of songs I’ve recorded and never sung on stage. There are a few I’d never sing again.
Which ones?
Christy: Ah, stop, Jackie.
But you said there’s hundreds of them, so name a couple of them.
Christy: For fuck's sake, man, you want everything! (laughs) Okay. Hundreds is an exaggeration. But ‘Bunch of Thyme’ and ….
Declan: ‘Lanigan’s Ball’?
Christy: Ah, no, I’d still give ‘Lanigan’s’ the odd lash. Let me see – ‘Bunch Of Thyme ‘ and ‘Barrnastaide’. There’s two for you!