Paul Brady began to play music professionally during the beat boom of the ‘60s. He has enjoyed a long and distinguished career since, spanning the ballad boom, a stint devoted to traditional music, membership of Planxty, and a career as a singer-songwriter and solo performer that yielded a series of major international successes.

He has broken box-office records in Ireland, playing a phenomenal run of 23 sell-out shows at Vicar St. in 2001. He has made a number of songs from the canon his own, including ‘Arthur McBride’ ‘The Homes Of Donegal’ and, arguably, ‘The Lakes Of Pontchartrain’. And he has written some of the most memorable and best loved Irish songs of the past 30 years, most notably ‘The Island’ – which has been widely covered – ‘Crazy Dreams’, ‘Nobody Knows’ and ‘The Long Goodbye (written with Ronan Keating).
His songs have been covered by dozens of artists, both Irish and international. Tina Turner led the charge with her version of ‘Steel Claw’ on her phenomenally successful Private Dancer album and Brady has been memorably covered also by Santana, Bonnie Raitt, Dave Edmunds, Cher, Carole King, Maura O’Connell, Mary Black and Brooks and Dunn – who had a No. 1 US hit with ‘The Long Goodbye’ – among many more.
With over 20 albums, including collaborations, already to his credit, Paul has just released a new retrospective compilation, entitled Dancer In The Fire: A Paul Brady Anthology. It is a curious but nonetheless fascinating artifact. Definitively not a Paul Brady greatest hits, rather it is a personal selection of songs, tracks and recordings that Brady himself wants to revisit – and through which he aims to offer a fresh variation on The Paul Brady Story to the wider listening public.
“With this record I decided to focus on songs and recordings of mine I’m personally fond of,” he explains, “mostly those that might not have got a lot of attention or been all that well known. Perhaps a b-side of a single or a different mix that was never released or even a demo. With a couple of exceptions they’re songs that rarely featured on radio.”
Whatever the nature of its genesis, listening to Dancer In The Fire, there is no denying the extraordinary range of his musical accomplishments. Whether you’re more taken by the eloquent self-analysis of title track, the sweet pop of ‘Smile’ or the zen reflectiveness of ‘The Promised Land’, he is indisputably a great songwriter, as well as a superb musician and a unique and powerful singer.
“To anyone coming to my music for the first time this will seem an eclectic collection... and then some,” he admits. “I’ve grown up in the rich musical environment of Ireland from the ‘50s to the present day, a unique and heady mixture. I feel very lucky to have formed my musical identity before the rigid categorisation introduced by marketing and the media in the ‘70s. The stylistic diversity of this record bears witness to that fertile ground.”
It does indeed. But first, a whistle-stop trip through the back pages.

It Was Early Doors...
One of my first memories would have been singing ‘Tom Dooley’ at the local carnival or in some neighbour’s house at a party or something. Lonny Donegan, ‘Cumberland Gap’, ‘Tom Dooley’. Skiffle. I loved all that. And a sideline to rock ‘n’ roll, which I was hugely into was The Shadows – and that late ‘50s, early ‘60s period where instrumental melodies like ‘Telstar’ by The Tornados, were in the Top 10. You’d never get an instrumental into the charts now.

Do You Like Good Music? Sweet Soul Music?
I went from rock ‘n’ roll and skiffle, through The Shadows, to the early Beatles but also to Otis Redding and Ray Charles really quickly. I got into soul music, Wilson Pickett, Junior Walker and the All Stars. Also the blues boom was really big for me – Peter Green, Fleetwood Mac, that kind of thing. All the bands I was singing in Dublin, from The Inmates and The Kult on to Rootzgroup and Rockhouse, we played a combination of Ray Charles through to Chuck Berry.

Joining The Johnstons: Nothing Would Ever Be The Same
I was still at college when I was offered a position in a group that was very successful – The Johnstons. That was the tipping point for me in saying, ‘I’m sorry, even if this means I don’t get my degree, I’m not passing up this opportunity’. That was a very strange period for me. I was always in the background in The Johnstons, singing harmonies or playing 12-string guitar. I went along for the ride, just to see where it would go – and a week after I joined The Johnstons, I was asked by Andy Irvine to join Sweeney’s Men, but by that stage it was too late. I had committed to The Johnstons. With hindsight, working with Andy and Sweeney’s Men would probably have been more compatible musically than The Johnstons were. I did go back to work with Andy and we produced some of our best stuff together, but the die had been cast. It’s one of those strange quirks of fate: when you make a decision like that, well, things change forever.

Suddenly There Was A ‘Y’ In The Road
I often ask myself what would have happened if I hadn’t taken that left turn into Irish traditional music in the ‘70s. I did start writing songs when I was in The Johnstons, but they’re the kind of songs now that I feel happy when they’re not brought up, because I was very young at the time. ‘Continental Trailways Bus’ stands out. But when I got into traditional music, I left that entire side of myself behind and for almost a whole decade I did nothing but traditional music. Would I have had more international success if I had just stayed with that one thing throughout the ‘70s? Or not? I don’t ever regret my period of traditional music but it took me off the path that I eventually went back onto, and by the time I got back on to it of course, it was exactly the wrong time: here I was coming back as a singer-songwriter in 1981 when all that was on the radio was Bananarama and Duran Duran and Haircut 100. It was all about haircuts and shoulder pads in those days. Singer-songwriters – what was that? Bad timing!

So You Wanna Make A Hit Record?
It’s not any one thing, it’s the combination of the melody, the lyric, the arrangement and the spirit of the singer, the spirit behind the song. It’s a magic process, writing and singing. Magic doesn’t happen often and you’re not in control of it and you can just do your best to be true to who you are and what your talent is and hopefully magic will follow. But I think it has to have a strong melody and I suppose, the postman has to able to whistle it. Alright, rhythm is very important but a song is not a song to me unless it has a melody that can stand on its own when you take all the structure away from it and all the production.

The Risk Of Giving It Loads
When you have that structure there and you’re excited by it, it’s difficult to resist piling shit on, you know? The secret is to know when to stop. People might disagree but I always feel that I knew reasonably when to stop. Maybe some records I overdid it a bit, but it’s hard, when you have a box full of toys, not to take them all out and give them a run.

The Song Is What You Make It
Titles are very, very important. It has to be something that’s memorable, something that has to slip off the tongue easily and has an inherent rhythm in it. ‘The World Is What You Make It’ – that’s basically three stories. Each verse is a separate story entirely. They’re just set out there as little things and the chorus ties them all together. That happened very quickly, that song. That lyrical phrase and the music for that phrase came together. I was in New York, actually making the Trick Or Treat record. I didn’t finish the song for a few months after and never recorded it for another five years.

When I Paint My Masterpiece
There was a lot of great songs around and so I didn’t want to be writing ordinary stuff. I put a lot of pressure on myself to try and match up with the people I really admired. I mean, I did want to write substantial songs. It takes a lot out of me, energy-wise and psychically to actually write a song, and at the end of that I want there to be something worthwhile that’s going to last. But maybe, at times, I could have lightened up a bit (laughs).

Hallelujah! Someone Wants To Cover My Song
It snuck up on me. I wasn’t thinking of myself as a coverable songwriter at all, I was thinking that I was going to make a living as a songwriter from the sales of my own records. The first one was Santana. At the time I had been discussing management with Bill Graham in San Francisco. He also managed Carlos Santana and Santana were making a new album at the time, and they had Hard Station, on their disc player. And they played ‘Night Hunting Time’ for Carlos Santana and he ended up recording it. That was a very fortuitous accident.

The One That Nearly Got Away
Tina Turner recorded an entire album, and then Roger Davies, who was managing Olivia Newton-John at the time, took Tina on as well and he listened to the album and said, ‘This isn’t good enough’, and they binned the album and I thought UNNKH! I figured that was my chance gone. Nine months later I got a phone call saying that ‘Steel Claw’ was the only cut they were keeping from the previous bunch of songs. I was a huge Tina Turner fan. Although at the time she recorded ‘Steel Claw’, she was at the bottom of a long slide downhill and really wasn’t a commercial proposition at all. I remember one person slagging me at the time when I rang up and said, ‘I’ve just got a cut off a Tina Turner record’ and he says, ‘Yeah, call me back when you get a cut of something that’s gonna sell’. And of course, 20 million albums later, I didn’t even bother to call him.

Whatever You Do, Don’t Make Me Think About It
I have co-written many, many times but I’m never sure quite how to do it and I don’t have any strategy that I adopt when I start to write a song. I suppose the simplest answer is that I feel I don’t know how to write songs, I just blunder into them and a whole series of parts of me come into play that I’m not quite in control of. I don’t like to be too mentally or intellectually involved in the process of writing a song because I end up in cul-de-sacs all the time when I bring my intellect into play.

Being Complicated Comes Easy
I was, and I’ve always been alarmed at the diversity of my material because I know that it’s a liability as much as an advantage in a world of marketing, but that’s what it is, you know? I always loved many, many different kinds of music and I never had the patience, or maybe the wit, to hone my signal so that it would be readily acceptable. I never wanted to narrow my signal down because there’s just too much fun to be had.

Collaborating On The Long Goodbye
Ronan Keating was just leaving Boyzone and Louis Walsh wanted him to start writing songs and to work with songwriters who had a track record – so he rang me up and asked would I write with him and I said sure. He came around here one day. He said he was just driving over and the title of the song came into his head, ‘The Long Goodbye’. I sometimes think it might have been to do with his mother and the fact that she passed and presumably it was a long passing, but eventually the song was written about a relationship that was going nowhere and constantly in trouble...

Hitting The Jackpot With Brooks & Dunn
Reba McEntire wanted to record the song and she was walking through the lobby of one of the studios in Nashville when she heard the song coming out of one of the studios, and she said, (incredulous) ‘Who’s recording that? I’m just about to record that!’ It was actually Brooks & Dunn. They got there first. They put the song on the album. They kept pretty close to the arrangement that I had, including Fiachra Trench’s string arrangement. He didn’t know whether to congratulate them or to sue them! But anyway, each time they’d put a single out, I’d be like, ‘Is this ‘The Long Goodbye’? No, it’s not’. It wasn’t a typical Brooks And Dunn song. They were a pretty swaggery country band but eventually they put it out as a single. It was just inching up the charts all the time, which is actually very good from the point of view of a songwriter and royalties – because the longer your song is on the radio, the more money you make. If it goes to No. 1 straight away then drops to No. 20 the following week, that’s the end of it. The song took forever to get to No. 1 – about 19 weeks. It did very well for Ronan too. Ronan’s version went top five pretty much all over Europe and the Far East, and again, it was about the fifth single off that album. Don’t know what it was about the song but A&R-type people didn’t respond to it.

Changing Keys Is Like A Change Of Scenery
I like varying things around, changing keys in the middle of a song. I always loved Stevie Wonder’s music and he changed key all the time. He would write three songs in one. You’d think the song was over and then he’d turn a corner and go somewhere else for another minute, an entirely different environment, musically. That’s great. I love that.

Why Dancer In The Fire?
I just thought it was a good title for an album. It was one of my first ever songs. It was probably a subconscious struggle, with me trying to decide to leave traditional music and jump into a whole world that I knew nothing about and I would have to build and reinvent myself – and maybe the time I wrote the song, I still hadn’t the courage to do it. It is a contradiction, because the actual character in the song was afraid to dance in the fire. It’s a strange kind of anomaly, but personally I feel that the music business has toasted my toes many’s a time (laughs) and I’ve still kept on gingerly picking my way through it, so on that level, I suppose I am dancing in the fire.

You’re All On Your Own, Baby…
I’ve always got this dream where the world as I know it is inside this glass ball but I’m outside it, trying to go, ‘HEY!’. That’s what ‘Steel Claw’ is about. I’m outside the system. You’re not letting me in – so I’m going to force my way in. I felt like an outsider when I was in the traditional music world and I felt like an outsider when I was in the so-called rock world. I never felt part of any movement or mileu. I just felt totally on my own. Maybe I engineered that? Someone said to me the other day that I have managed to get myself to exactly where I wanted to be, without me knowing where I wanted to be.

In Music You Never Know Where You’re Going To End Up
I think you have to take risks. You have to go places that you don’t know where you’re going and there’s no end in sight and you have to go there anyway. That’s fucking scary. A lot of the time, I had to do that. Apart from just the blank page business of being a songwriter and you approach a blank page, there’s the decisions you make in your career. Would I work with this person? Would I get rid of that band? Nobody can make these decisions except you.

The Trick Is To Find Your Own Voice
It was actually traditional songs that made me the singer I am, that made me sing and find a voice and a personality through that voice, and that I brought into my own compositions and my own recordings since. Whatever personality I developed, I developed through traditional music. As for the great Irish song: ‘The Mountains Of Mourne’ would have to be one. ‘The Homes Of Donegal’. God, there’s so many great Irish songs. ‘Follow Me Up To Carlow’.

Tipping The Hat To Van The Man
‘Into The Mystic’. I love that song. When The Johnstons imploded in America in 1972, ‘73, I tried to put together a solo act in a little club in Newport, Rhode Island, of about ten songs and one of them was Hank Williams’ ‘You Win Again’, which is on the new record, and one was Van Morrison’s ‘Into The Mystic’ and another one was ‘Arthur McBride’. I think there was a Beatles song in there too. That would have been before I started writing, and then I went back and joined Planxty, of course, so the whole writing thing went on the long finger again for another five or six years.

It’s All About Live Now... Not!
I’m a songwriter. I do a job. I make a piece of work, and like everyone else in the world, songwriters like to get paid for the work they do. I think copyright is the issue here. The value of copyright has to be maintained. Whatever about the physicalities of the transference of it, if ownership is diluted, then that’s a major disaster for the entire creative, artistic community. Not just music, but movies and theatre and everything and it’s not enough to say, ‘Ah just go out and play live’. I know dozens of brilliant songwriters who can’t perform live. It’s way too simplistic to say: ‘It’s all about the live now’.

Calling All Politicians! Calling All Politicians!
I don’t think the Irish government has been sufficiently proactive on this. If I hear another government representative saying how the artistic community in Ireland are going to get us out of the mess – I mean, with what? Our guitar strings? You’ve got to protect the creators of work and you’ve got to take copyright seriously and not be spooked by the loud voices who’ve got their own agenda.

What Happens When Artists Can’t Make A Living?
I can’t believe that the entire artistic output of the human race is going to be so devalued that no-one is going to be able to make a living from art, so I think something will happen – but in the short or medium term, I’m not at all positive about it. I’m mostly concerned for the younger generation – those who are trying to make it now – and to a certain extent, I feel that generation has shot itself in the foot because they’re the ones who are downloading for free, but it’s their artists who can’t make a living. The spokespersons of their own generation are almost making it impossible for them to continue doing what they’re doing, to make a living.

We’re An Island On The Edge Of Europe...
I don’t have a lot of hope for the European model. We’re at the periphery of Europe – we’re an island. Even the Brits have the Channel Tunnel, they can drive to France. We’re totally disadvantaged from that point of view and I don’t think that’s going to change much. I don’t think we’re going to get special treatment. I also feel that the power will always rest in Germany and France and there are too many culturally different imperatives in Europe for there to be a sense of unity in the long term, so I worry about Europe. I think there are parts of Europe that are endemically unsustainable economically and no matter how they indulge in cutting expenditure, no matter how much austerity you put on certain parts of Europe, it’s not going to make them as viable as other parts of Europe. So the model can only exist, really, if the richer parts of Europe give to the poorer parts of Europe. And I don’t mean a loan, but that there is a constant stream of equalisation throughout Europe – and I don’t see that happening, frankly.

Dancer In The Fire: A Paul Brady Anthology is out now on Proper Records.