A year can elapse in the space of a song. This year, the song in question seemed to materialise out of nowhere. It didn t even sound that special at first; if anything it was borderline banal, stopping just short of clichi, the kind of plainspeak the singer has favoured of late.
But this tune made itself known about halfway through the year, and seemed to define everything that came both before and after. It was a song that followed me around like a shadow, through churches, pubs, maternity wards, at deathbeds, in theatres and funeral parlours, gardens and graveyards, private places and public spaces. It sat in the passenger seat of the car, lurked in the wings at gigs, kept me awake at night.
The song was Things Have Changed by Bob Dylan, the theme to a film called Wonder Boys starring Michael Douglas and Robert Downey Jr, both of whom make an appearance in the subtly bizarre promo video. The film looks interesting, but I m reluctant to go see it because it ll probably spoil the theme tune. It may be good, but it won t be what I imagined, what the song suggests in so many obtuse ways.
And in some fashion, it felt like Bob s year. I missed the live shows, but still he loomed over Ireland like some aged and deadly serious joker with a line for every occasion: I got new eyes/Everything seems far away . Something is happening/But you don t know what it is . . . Money doesn t talk, it swears.
You could certainly sing the last one if you put a tune to it.
Old mother Mammon has ripped the heart out of Irish society and is about to take a shit in the hole. Dublin used to be a city of beautiful mutterers, but now there s a new breed of gesticulator. You can see him, stopped shock still in the lunchtime crowd, jabbering and gesticulating just like the stinky-headed madmen of old. Except he s not expounding some cracked theory or looking for odds, he s on the headset, with a takeout crappuccino in his fist, hooked up to a life-and-death conference call with Compaq, Miramax and Marks & Sparks.
The devil, as always, is in the details. The way nobody holds the door anymore. The way motorists risk getting maimed just to grab an extra few seconds breaking a red light. The way mobile phone zombies come too close to
stabbing your kids in the eye with a cigarette when you re walking down Grafton Street. It s
pig-fucking ugly, from the bully-boy strike tactics of taxi drivers to the blood lust mentality of the Haughey lynch mob whose mindset is just as unsavoury as any of the old buzzard s schemes and scams.
So, on that joyous note, let me unveil the close runner up for Song of the Year: Warren Zevon s My Shit s Fucked Up.
For sure, it was a year when incredible shit happened.
It was also a year when people died way before their time.
I wanted to write a few words about Uaneen s death, but like almost everyone who works in music in Dublin, I m still in shock. All I can say is that I think she must have been the happiest person I ever met.
So, one more time for the road: Things Have Changed.
Ireland never had a sixties, but The Big Chill has well and truly set in.