Cassandra Voices

Tag: John Buckley McQuaid

  • Musician of the Month: John Buckley McQuaid

    THIS IS WHERE I KEEP MY DREAMS

    I was born and raised in Dublin, in a house with a piano and a garden. At the bottom of the garden, there were two beautiful chestnut trees, one taller than the other. It was here that I went when I needed to be alone. I always observed the same ritual. I would first climb the smaller of the trees and then the taller. The taller was enormously high. I didn’t dare climb the whole way to the top because the branches didn’t look strong enough to bear my weight.

    One day, my curiosity got the better of me and I gathered my courage and climbed to where I’d never climbed before. Sneakers green with chestnut bark and young heart thudding in my elated chest, I clung to the thin, uppermost branches and looked out over the world. A neighbour’s dog danced along the top of the wall between our gardens. I could see the church where I attended Sunday Mass, the school where I lived in daily fear of not being good enough and the shop where I bought acid drops, broken biscuits and, as a teenager, illegal Black Russian cigarettes.

    Years later, my father complained about the millions of leaves that the trees shed every autumn, which took him days and days to clear away.

    If you promise not to tell anybody, I’ll let you in on a secret. There is a garden at the bottom of which, two chestnut trees stand, magnificently tall and green with leaves. There is a place at the top of the larger tree where the branches look too thin to bear the weight of a curious child; from where the eye can see a church, a school, a shop and a dog that dances along the top of a wall. A place where a child went when he needed to be alone and where one day, his curiosity got the better of his fear and he climbed to where he’d never climbed before.

    This is where I keep my dreams.

    All children are born creative. This creativity can either be encouraged or suppressed. I was not allowed to paint as a child so I learned to paint with words.

    There are basically two kinds of people in the world. Those who are up to their ears in emotional issues, and do their best to get out of them. And those who are up to their ears in emotional issues, and do their best to stay in them.

    We are all here to learn.

    HUMOUR AND ART

    Humour is a wonderful way to communicate – it disarms and enables us to say many things that are otherwise unsayable or unacceptable to the listener.

    Isn’t life wonderful, ain’t it a thrill?
    Drinks on the table, chops on the grill
    And if you’re not able, we’ll give you a pill
    If life doesn’t get you, then happiness will.

    We, as a nation, have grown up in the shadow of the Confessional, where all our sins have been forgiven on a regular basis, which inspired the following lines:

    CONFESSIONS OF A CATHOLIC KID

    I used to be a Catholic
    Magnificently guilty
    The sex was good from Hollywood
    To fabulously filthy

    Forgive me Lord for I have sinned
    I promise not to sin again
    Unless of course I get the chance
    I beg forgiveness in advance

    Mea culpa, mea culpa
    Mea maxima culpa

    The main lesson we learn from history is that we do not learn from history. Art is not a luxury but a necessity. The artist is the alchemist of our times, who turns the garbage of emotional issues into the gold of creation, reflecting the world’s absurdities. Crises are gifts that tell us who we are.

    Once I showed someone a place where I wrote every day. They remarked that the view was not very exciting, to which I replied: “I’m not looking out, I’m looking in.”

    “Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” ― Cesar A. Cruz

    Convenience is the byword and the curse of modern society.

    MAKING AN IRISH ALBUM

    Last year I released an album of original songs about Ireland, “This Is Where I Keep My Dreams”  https://johnbuckleymcquaid.lnk.to/ThisIsWhereIKeepMyDreams

    The songs were written over a period of 34 years. Not wishing to be pigeon-holed as a certain kind of performer, I waited until last year to record and release the album. The title song, the text of which opens this article, references growing up in the south Dublin suburb of Stillorgan.  The song “Prodigal Kiss” imagines Oisín Mac Cumhaill returning to the Ireland of today and taking the Luas. What might he have made of the state of Ireland today? The chorus poses the question: How did we get from the passion and ideals of 1916 to the prevalent malaise of 2022?

    And you can be sure that we’ll never forget
    The culture of vultures and dealers in debt
    The struggles and Troubles, the gold, white and green
    So much for our beautiful Nineteen-sixteen.

    The album is compassionately critical of society – especially in ‘Girls Who Lived In Hell’, a song  inspired by and dedicated to the girls who endured the Hell of the Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes. The last Magdalene Laundry closed in 1996.

    Our country has been delivered into the hands of rogues and scoundrels, Vulture Funds, Rotating Taoiseachs and Landlord TDs, who choose to serve themselves, rather than those they are chosen by and paid to serve. Let there be a separation of Church and State. Let the Church and State pay full redress to all victims and survivors of clerical and governmental abuse. Let the churches pay property tax. Let us pass a law prohibiting TDs from being landlords and/or property speculators. Let us build a society based on compassion, justice and accountability. Let us rise up and take back what is rightfully ours at the next election. Let us stand firm in hope.

    We have so much compassion for the downtrodden of other nations, but very little when it comes to ourselves.

    HOMELESS HOTELS

    I’ll tell you a tale of the Homeless Hotels
    Those chosen to serve, have us under their spells
    We live on the streets and we scrounge for a crust
    And curse the hyenas betraying our trust

    They say that there isn’t, we know that there is
    We’re hungry and fearful and God help the kids
    They’re lost and they’re lonely and strung out on drugs
    They turn into monsters that nobody hugs

    Ireland, Ireland, Ireland, Ireland
    Some get cake and some get crumb
    Ireland, Ireland, Ireland, Ireland
    What on earth have we become?

    The merciless clergy abused and denied
    For ages the blameless that they crucified
    They buried them namelessly under the sod
    And offered novenas in praise of their God

    They’re burning down churches on faraway land
    We may not agree but we do understand
    We’re drinking and thinking and feeling the shame
    We don’t have the strength to be doing the same

    Ireland, Ireland, Ireland, Ireland
    Some get cake and some get crumb
    Ireland, Ireland, Ireland, Ireland
    What on earth have we become?

    Ireland, Ireland, Ireland, Ireland
    Trotters trotting to the trough
    Ireland, Ireland, Ireland, Ireland
    Can’t you see? We’ve had enough!

    All lyrics by John Buckley McQuaid

    LINKS:

    VALENTINE’S DAYS – An e-book in four parts, consisting of 29 songs and 29 videos. A love story, based on actual events, which takes place in Paris, Madrid, Berlin and Aarhus):

    E-books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/valentines-days-part-1-paris/id1191539417

    THIS IS WHERE I KEEP MY DREAMS:

    GIRLS WHO LIVED IN HELL:

    PRODIGAL KISS:

    HOMELESS HOTELS:

  • Ireland: The Lipsticked Pig

    On February 15th, 2021, John Buckley McQuaid, released an album of original songs about Ireland, This Is Where I Keep My Dreams, to a thundering silence from the media.

    Long have I missed albums from Irish artists that address our present situation of apathy and indifference. Could it be that the media is ignoring such releases or could it be that such releases have so little commercial appeal, that artists refrain from recording and releasing them?

    The situation for musicians is desperate, between Spotify and COVID-19, many musicians have thrown in the towel and have had to find other means of supporting themselves.

    This brings me to ‘This Is Is Where I Keep My Dreams’, which delves into Irish history and has many comments, both critical and compassionate to make on the present situation. Mr. McQuaid (no relation to the late Archbishop!) is saying something that needs to be heard – now, more than ever! He has also created videos which add wonderful visuals to accompany many of the songs (links provided).

    Here’s to the island of saints and of scholars
    ere’s to the biblical beasts of the field
    Here’s to the kingdom of clerical collars
    Here’s to the wounds that may never be healed.
    John Buckley McQuaid, ‘Land Of The Magdalenes’

    ‘Land Of The Magdalenes’ is a tale of the Diaspora, echoing James Joyce, a man who would not bend the knee to either Church or State, who referred to Irish art as ‘the cracked looking glass of a servant’ – an image of colonial subjugation.

    Joyce himself went into exile in Europe, not being a man to play popinjay to an English court. He was guilty of the cardinal sin of pride, the sin of the devil – the defiant Joycean stance is still a reproach to any servile attitude towards Church, State, or a twisted, demonic God, who may, even now, be making Joyce pay throughout all eternity for his defiance.

    Today the image in the servant’s looking glass is that of a post-colonial pig in lipstick smirking at its own reflection, aping its betters, mired in its own moral excrement, the sow rolling merrily on its young.

    Rosary Beads and Respectability

    Instead of rosary beads and respectability, we have the brash, vulgar, ignorant Castle Catholics, educating their children in private schools, a new pernicious breed of self-interested professionals and the very wealthy, whose aspirations are status, the acquisition of wealth, and self-advancement.

    Give us this day lord, our villas in Spain, Lord
    Give us our castles with breakfast in bed
    Give us a case of expensive champagne Lord,
    Give us a place Lord, to lay down our heads.
    John Buckley McQuaid ‘Dear Mister Taoiseach’

    All a far cry from the childhood of the late Frank McCourt, who wrote of having to conceal a pig’s head under newspaper walking home for fear he’d be mocked at Christmas, as they couldn’t afford a turkey.

    When the brash Celtic Tiger gave way to the Crash; in a pub one afternoon, I noticed a couple walk in with Brown Thomas bags and noted their instinct to conceal them. People did not approve.

    Today the Brown Thomas Brigade no longer care – the sale of luxury goods goes up and up, and the divide between the wealthy and the poor has widened and widened, decimating an already struggling middle class.

    And you can be sure that we’ll never forget
    The culture of vultures and dealers and debt
    The struggles and troubles, the gold, white and green
    So much for our beautiful 1916
    John Buckley McQuaid ‘Prodigal Kiss’

    So we have replaced foreign oppressors with our own.

    Class Solidarity

    Class solidarity and resistance against oppression is necessary around the world today, but this nation has an extremely important role to play, and is surely judged by how it treats its vulnerable – the young – sure stick them in hotel bedrooms where they can’t even learn how to crawl – the sick – let them drop dead on waiting lists – and the old – let them die in nursing homes.

    As capitalism consumes itself, we witness the consequences globally, increasingly powerful vested interests hold sway in so called democracies, polarising the divide, the social fabric disintegrates, and the world begins to convulse.

    We have witnessed Brexit, Trump, civil unrest, our own electoral shifts, the established powers clinging on as the centre weakens, and the left and the right finding themselves curious bedfellows in opposing the establishment. All the while in this country, we have:

    Trotters trotting to the trough.
    John Buckley McQuaid ‘Homeless Hotels’ (unpublished)

    So what would a visitor from the past witness here? If Oisin were to return from the land of his youth:

    His heart is still young ‘though he’s long in the tooth
    For want of a horse, he’ll be taking the Luas
    He used to be cool now he’s yesterday’s news.
    John Buckley McQuaid ‘Prodigal Kiss’

    Maybe he’d notice the cherished children of the nation queueing outside the GPO. Maybe he’d
    notice the obscenity of the tents in the city and the spectral figures begging for money. He might not even be sure what century he was in. He might notice the undeserving child eating its dinner off the ground outside the GPO.

    So we had the Mother and Baby homes, the Industrial schools, the orphanages, the Magdalene laundries, the lunatic asylums, the Ferns report, the Ryan report…. those Girls who lived in hell:

    Where cruelty prevailed
    In gardens with forbidden trees
    Whose walls we never scaled
    John Buckley McQuaid ‘Girls Who Lived In Hell

    Craw Thumping

    Then we have the craw thumping about it all.

    What of the babies they left on our doorsteps
    What of the innocent girls that they shamed
    What of the idols they fearfully worshipped
    What of the bones that they buried unnamed
    What of the tears they pretend not to notice
    What of the orphanage blood in our veins
    What of the postcards that nobody posted
    Telling us where they could find the remains?
    John Buckley McQuaid ‘Dear Mister Taoiseach

    Today we have our homeless hostels:

    Children living on the street, leave these premises by ten,
    Every day’s a new defeat, seven, they’ll be back again
    John Buckley McQuaid ‘Here In Deirdre Land’

    The homeless, who are forced:

    To scrounge for a crust, and curse the hyenas betraying our trust.
    John Buckley McQuaid ‘Homeless Hotels’

    Today we live in an open air Magdalene laundry, again sanctioned by the State, (and there are no high walls,) where the vulnerable are shoved into single rooms in hotels, battened on by private interests – if they’re in the way, they can be shovelled into a machine to clear them off the streets.

    In the land of polished halos, nothing ever changes….

    Undercurrent of Sadness

    The undercurrent of sadness on this album by John Buckley McQuaid, himself an emigrant who lives in Denmark, is something that will actually suck you in, challenging the paralysis, indifference and passivity here, the ongoing connivance with the Church:

    There’s a crowd of ghosts on O Connell Street
    And a spire where a pillar used to be
    Now the city boasts a mighty tourist fleet
    While the Liffey’s full of longing for the sea….
    John Buckley McQuaid ‘Prodigal Kiss’

    Nothing ever changes. Nothing ever changes, in the land of polished halos…….

     

    Comfort’s a terribly cruel addiction,
    Comfort may never be cured,
    Comfort is closing its eyes to affliction
    Comfort just won’t be disturbed
    John Buckley McQuaid ‘Comfort Just Won’t Be Disturbed’ (unpublished lyric)

    The prod of a pitchfork might cure it.

    There’s a distant sound of drumming
    From the prisons of the poor
    Soon the pitchforks will be coming
    To administer the cure.

    We should hang ourselves in private
    For the greater common good
    And they dared us to survive it
    Or to write it down in blood.
    John Buckley McQuaid ‘Likes Of You And Me’ (unpublished lyric)

    The depressed souls in our world serve a useful function – the first to be picked off in a dysfunctional, valueless world – as an unheeded warning to the stampeding herd hurtling over a cliff.

    Sins of the Father

    The children of the Celtic rodent may bang away on their pianos, but the Sins of the Father will be visited on them.

    Dreams may be real for the freaks and the fools
    Finding employments like winning the pools
    Thats why we sent him to all the right schools
    Freedom is freedom to follow our rules
    John Buckley McQuaid ‘Follow Our Rules’ (unpublished lyric)

    And what of this boy?
    I’m looking for a child
    With a heart of gold
    Stars in his eyes
    And a long way to go.
    John Buckley McQuaid ‘Looking For A Child’ (from the album Call It Love)

    The Dreams of a child. The Dreams of a nation. Who dreams of being a pig?

    Take a look in that cracked looking glass, and you may see the reflection of a lipsticked pig, possibly your own. You might ask yourself the question: is compassion possible in a land with a legacy of Church and State being so inextricably intertwined?

    And if you haven’t heard the album yet, do yourself a favour and give it a listen: https://johnbuckleymcquaid.lnk.to/ThisIsWhereIKeepMyDreams

    These songs deserve to be heard and we deserve to hear them.

    Videolinks

    ‘Girls Who Lived in Hell’
    https://vimeo.com/467231264

    ‘Prodigal Kiss’
    https://vimeo.com/467236532/70f6a4db35

    ’Land of the Magadalenes‘
    https://vimeo.com/467234061/f6b5699912

    ’The Genius‘
    https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/467238847/9cc8b0e515

    ’Stillorgan Symphony‘
    https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/467237861

    ’Candy and Cutlets‘
    https://vimeo.com/467229709/1e5a274b20

    ’Dear Mister Taoiseach‘
    https://vimeo.com/588389412/c73e020758

    Featured Image: Taoiseach Micheál Martin with US Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez in 2005.