The Bigger Picture

I once had a blazing row with a woman over Eleanor McEvoy. This woman was complaining to me, with much vitriol, that she would never again go to a McEvoy gig because the last time she did she was repeatedly propositioned by lesbians in the venue's loo.

Although I wasn't campaigning for the Presidency of McEvoy's fanclub, I thought this a mite unfair, like blaming the band because blokes keep spilling your drink. My protestations proved fruitless, but it did make me realise that the "A Woman's Heart" phenomenon, kick-started by McEvoy's song of that name, might have been serving as a rallying cry for women with non-heterosexual tendencies without me even knowing it.

So before meeting McEvoy this time I was set to slip into Joe Jackson mode and interrogate her about all this. But then I got hold of an advance copy of her new album Snapshots and heard her sing, on the very first track, that "there's more to this woman than a woman's heart", and decided it might be time to let go of the past and concentrate on McEvoy's present and future instead.

"You see, 'A Woman's Heart' was a song I wrote in an afternoon and I'm grateful for what it did for me, but I have other things to say and other themes to write about," she tells me.

So is "There's More To This Woman", the opening track on the album, an attempt to exorcise the past once and for all?

"No, it wasn't that calculated. I was in the middle of writing it, and I got stuck at one part of the lyrics at the line 'there's more to this woman' and couldn't work out what to say next. I was walking around the house when the next bit 'than a woman's heart' came to me and I had to laugh at the whole idea. So I then had to go back and change some of the other lyrics to fit. People can read anything they like into it, but it's not as contrived as you're trying to make out."

Snapshots was produced by Rupert Hine, of Tina Turner and Stevie Nicks fame, and shows a more percussive, more adventurous approach than Eleanor's previous outings.

"I wanted to do an album that focused on the songs and developed them as much as possible in whatever direction they needed to go, rather than a band doing a bunch of songs in a studio," she explains. "I did that with the last album, so this was a definite departure in that sense."

McEvoy and Hine started off with about 12 new compositions, including one she'd written with Rodney Crowell, and did up to three or four versions of some before settling on a particular soundscape in which to develop the song. In spite of that, the album has a surprisingly cohesive sound. Unlike other recent albums by Irish singer-songwriters, Snapshots is not an album that could have been recorded in the '70s: it's definitely this year's model.

"Before recording it I was listening to a wide range of music, lots of soul stuff, hip-hop, trip-hop, Sly And The Family Stone and especially the Buena Vista Social Club," she relates. "I also liked the way The Fugees marry sweet melodic songs to a noisier background.

That appealed to me and I had a fairly rough idea of what I was reaching for. At one stage I even dropped a serious clanger in the studio when I asked the bass player could he play a particular part like a machine would. I actually couldn't believe I'd said it, but I knew I wanted to get that feel to it. It wasn't a conscious thing. I work fairly instinctively and do things that keep me interested because I don't want to make the same album over and over."

Three tracks in a row, "Did You Tell Him?", "Please Heart, You're Killing Me" and "To One I Didn't Know" are all slow moody songs about ex-lovers, and the very next track "Now You Tell Me" deals with a soon-to-be ex-lover. Does this reveal an unhealthy obsession with the past?

"No, I don't think so. Sure, some songs on the album might have similar themes, but then 'Sophie' deals with anorexia and bulimia. 'Easy To Lose' covers the murder of Veronica Guerin and 'She Had It All' is about female alcoholism, so I write about subjects that interest me."

McEvoy is noted within the industry for her hard-nosed outspokenness and fiery independence, perhaps best exemplified in a biting Hot Press Yearbook feature some years ago in which she explained what the phrases used by record companies actually mean in reality. Since Snapshots is her third album for a major label, I wondered if she'd rethought her attitude.

"Certainly not! Most labels have their good points and their weaknesses and some are even honest enough to tell you where they might fall down. But this is my career, and I'm not prepared to allow it to be determined by the whims and failures of other people's agendas."

McEvoy readily admits that much of her material in the past has been fairly autobiographical, but she's aware that people can often read too much into a song and get it wrong.

"There's a song of mine called 'Fire Up Above' which was written about Los Angeles but someone put it on the Internet that it was about the IRA. When you looked at their interpretation it made perfect sense, but that was not what I had in mind at all."

Since she admits that some of her songs often refer to real people from her own life, I ask her would she ever do what Sting did with "Every Breath You Take" and write a vitriolic song designed to deliberately hurt a former lover every time they hear it for the rest of their lives?

She pauses for a while as if surprised I could even think her capable of such a thing. Then she looks up, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, and says, "Why do you think I haven't done that already?"

I reckon there might be some people in this town listening to Eleanor McEvoy's new album with even closer attention than ever before.

Eleanor McEvoy's album Snapshots will be released on Columbia Records on 14th May in Ireland, in the USA in June and in Europe in September. The single "Did You Tell Him?" is released in Ireland on 26th April.