Paul: I was reading a Seamus Heaney poem, which is called Song. And I just wondered if the song is the last refuge for poetry.  It ends: ‘And that moment when the bird sings very close, To the music of what happens’.

Mary: I think a lot of songs are poems set to music. I don't think there's a huge distance between them. You could be moved by words and you can very much be moved by music with no words.

Some lyrics can be read without a tune. In Metropolitan Avenue Noel Brazil says, ‘This rose will never blossom now, it needs light shining on its back’.

Sometimes the words work for themselves, and you don't even have to have a lilt to make it connect with you. Noel was just one of the most brilliant writers Ireland ever produced, very gifted. And it's a talent. I think it's something that you can't really develop as an art, I think it's something that's inherent within you, you are forced to write, to survive.

When you read lyrics, hear a song, is it love at first sight?

Sometimes it is. Sometimes I can be wooed by song. But then I realise that it's not for me. There have been some songs that came my way, but I thought I wouldn't do them justice. It didn’t affect how I felt about them. Being a singer of other people's songs for the most part, it’s really important that you can get really behind the emotions of what's been said, the feelings that are there.

When you choose a song it seems that they are songs on to which we can all pin their emotions.

Well, probably, yes, because even when I haven't written it myself, I can connect myself to it and somehow slowly immerse myself in so deeply that it can feels as if I have written it even though I haven’t. And the listener can put their own feelings or situations in life onto it that somehow connects it to them. I think a good love song will do that because most people at some stage in their life have felt like that even if they are not feeling that way at that very moment in time.

There’s a sort of splendid ordinariness to some of your choices, a commonality, especially the more melancholic pieces.

Sometimes the simplest way of saying something is the very best way of saying it. Noel would say something very short, very brief, and if I tried to say exactly what he said, I would fill two fullscap  pages. And that's the sign of a great writer. I think that's a wonderful gift.

Through the decades, I was wondering how you thought about the changes in the music business. It's all gone digital and getting a hold of music is easier than buying a litre of milk.

I'm old-fashioned in a way. I always feel like I want to have something in my hand when it comes to music, something to look at, that’s just because of the time I come from and my age. It's made music very accessible to young people who maybe can’t afford to buy a whole album - they can pick the tracks they like. I don't know, I often find that if I buy an album maybe the first time I listen to it, I’ll have my favourite tracks but by the time I listen to it 20 times they might not be my favourite any more at all. I think there's something worthwhile in exposing yourself to even those that you like less. But to be honest I'm not sure about the way music is going. I still prefer the way I was brought up with music, the excitement of buying a CD, maybe even saving up for it. I think if we knew the excitement of getting an album - the planning and the waiting made it all the sweeter when you get it.

Exactly, the first kiss is never as good as the anticipation before it...

Exactly! (she laughs)

I've taken a few songs to find out how you chose them and what your memories were of them. Archie Fisher’s Men of Worth...

I was a big Archie Fisher fan, going back. I was listening to Scottish radio. In fact my brother was a big folk fan and collector of songs and through him, I suppose, I kind of latched on to that kind of thing…

'Leave the land behind, laddie, better days to find'…

I love it, it’s just so well put together, a great chorus. But it was such a sad song really because of the way Scotland had changed through the oil rigs and I think at the time people thought ‘this is going be fantastic, we're going to get rich’, but the guys came and went, and they were left with nothing. At the end of the day even the land had kind of suffered, the animals gone, the farms, and I think they lost so much really rather than gained.

The land was left as scarred the people…

Exactly, and I think the spirit was taken away. But I always loved Scottish music, and I still sing Scottish songs.

Julie Matthews' The Thorn Upon The Rose : 'I'd rather feel the thorn than to never see the rose'...

Yes, it’s been said in so many different ways in poems and songs throughout the centuries. ‘Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’. I got that song literally through my letterbox. I had never heard of her, it was just one of those songs that was gorgeous, just right for me at the time, with my voice, and the way I was drawn to that kind of ballad then, more so than maybe I am now.

As a mad Bob Dylan fan, I have to ask about Lay Down Your Weary Tune: ‘And rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings, No voice can hope to hum’…

You've been talking about poetry, this is like a kind of painting. It's a poem, it's painting, and it's a song. The words are just so incredible and the imagery is so amazing, and I just had to sing it. And I do get drawn like that. It wouldn't be one of his better-known songs, not covered by too many people. I'm a big Bob Dylan fan too ... sometimes people say what is that song? And I say Bob Dylan and they’d say What? Because it's not typically Bob Dylan. Maybe once you get your head into the lyrics, you can recognise him in it, but it's almost anthemy, spiritual.

One that you chose most recently was Tom Waits' If I Have To Go. A great short beautiful song: 'I'll leave my jacket to keep you warm, That's all that I can do'...

I know, I know, it's so sad. A women came up to me recently and she had obviously lost a loved one, her husband, I suspected, and she said, ‘I feel like you're singing that specially for me and it's funny, he kind of wanted me to be happy.




But he hated leaving me at the same time, you know’. In the song he left something to do wrap around her, as if to say I'll be waiting for, you’re mine. It's letting go, and it's not letting go.

It's a beautiful song. We recorded that in 20 minutes up in Donegal. When one of the songs I was planning on putting down didn't work out. The piano player was there, and I said, I really love this song, and we did it in one take, and that was it. But it was appropriate in some way to do it like that, because I had pulled together the whole 25 years. And if I have to go... and who knows I may not record another album, I'm not sure. So it was almost like a kind of little farewell song.

One of my favourite concerts was Tom Waits years ago at the Hammersmith Odeon, he finished with My Way, wearing a white suit and throwing confetti into the audience. Is there one concert you remember when you thought that was a brilliant concert?

The first time I saw James Taylor in the stadium - I've seen him lots of times since then - he had a full band and the backing vocals, the black singers, and I just was lifted off my chair. The sounds that were coming out were just so beautiful.

And I went to see Eddi Reader recently, we were doing a festival in Denmark, I had met her once briefly, but I didn't really know her, I'd never seen her in concert, and she blew me away. Absolutely blew me away.

Yeah, she's remarkable, she has the ability to throw a line of a song out and it seems to stay in the air forever ...

Absolutely. She has such a command, she has an amazing voice. She's just fantastic and a lovely girl too. We had a good night after it, we were up till four or five in the morning, telling stories and singing songs!

So when you yourself sit down to write…  Are you aware of taking onboard the tricks of the trade?

I suppose by osmosis now, I'm aware of what a good song is. I think I am aware of it and that's probably why I didn't put pen to paper for many years, because I felt that what I did wouldn't stand up beside the songs that I was performing. I started as a traditional singer, songs that were handed down from generation to generation, so writing wasn't part of that whole thing and then I began to branch out into other areas of music, and I was coming across these songs I'd never heard of, and I began to feel that whatever I could write wouldn't be as good as what I was getting. I would never compromise what I do. But I suppose with age and with time passing, there were a few songs that I was moved to write.

In Your Love you wrote , 'And now I breathe the life you gave'...

That song came to me in the middle of the night, my mother had died and I was very emotionally charged and I began to think a lot about and my life, and then I just had to sing in into my phone, to record, because I couldn’t go back to sleep. It came without me even trying, but I don't think the floodgates are going to open (laughs). I've written a few but I would wait until I was totally moved to do rather than say, ‘I'll get up in the morning and go and start into a song’. For me, I don't think that's true, I don't think it's honest. You have to be emotionally in that place.

The first songs I heard where by The Clancy Brothers, and I hear them sung now and I still remember them. Is there one song from your childhood that stands out that someone sang that takes you back to a time and place?

I remember my mother singing a song when I was a kid. It was called A Bird In A Gilded Cage. Funnily enough, that's the one we put on The Blacks album as a tribute to her. I just think there’s something lovely about it and it takes me back to my childhood, to that happy place. I suppose my parents did influence me more than I care to admit, when I was a kid, a teenager. But with hindsight, they strongly influenced me musically. I think for a teenager it’s very uncool for your parents to be cool. You just want to get away from them, because you think they don't know anything, but later on, you realise that they know an awful lot more. (laughs).

So is Belgium and the Netherlands next ... what's it like playing on the continent?

It's fantastic, because it's so close, you don’t have to fly to the other side of the world. Europe  for me was untapped territory. And Holland has always been great for me, and most of this tour will be in Holland. We always dip in and out of Belgium, it'll be nice to be back there, it's been about two years, I think since I toured in that part of the world.

So, after this tour you’re taking some time off?

I like to spread out my trips, it used to be because my kids were small, and I didn't want to be away from them too much. I just feel I want to keep it fresh for me, I don't like to overdo it. And so I’m really looking forward to a tour. And I've a truly good band, they are a joy to sing with. Then I’ll have a break…

If you come up with any good gardening tips…

I’ll let you know!

Paul Morris 2009



We have 5 pairs of tickets to give away for Mary Black's concert at the Ancienne Belgique on Friday 3 April. Simply tell us which Irish city Mary was born in: editorBE@expatica.com

Mary Black concerts in Belgium and the Netherlands
2 April 2009   Eindhoven      Muziekcentrum Frits Philips
3 April 2009   Brussels        Ancienne Belgique
4 April 2009   Breda            Chasse    
6 April 2009   Amsterdam    Carre    
7 April 2009   Groningen      De Oosterpoort    
8 April 2009   Utrecht           Leidsche Rijn    
9 April 2009   Nijmegen        De Vereeniging 

www.maryblack.net