1. Nobody Knows (Trick Or Treat/1991)  

One of the most potent images in my musical memory bank was the TV clip of the Beatles playing 'Get Back' on the rooftop of the Apple building in London. A symbolic 'This is our world and we can do what we want!' kind of thing, fingers up, outrageous and totally self confident. My dark side conjured up a scene all those years later of a similar situation where our hero runs to the roof, cranks up, has his big moment then looks down for the adoring crowd to realise no one has even noticed ...no one is even there. This one goes out to all those fellow humans who feel the only way they'll get attention is to go on confessional TV. What is it about us anyway? Star-gazing, trail-blazing? Somebody pass me the beer and the remote.

2. The World Is What You Make It ( Spirits Colliding/ 1995)
 

Sometimes a song comes out so fast you feel it's writing itself. All those Latin classes in boarding school in Derry didn't go to waste. Beneath what appears to be a serious exterior lies the real Paul Brady, daft as a brush, brash... trash. Written in a frenzy at the Paramount Hotel, New York City, I later made a demo at home in Dublin and as usual tried to record it for real when I went to do the Spirits Colliding record. Divine intervention in the form of John O'Kane, who was over writing with me around this time, convinced me to use the original demo. If this was all I left behind I'd be happy enough. Subsequently this became the theme song to the successful Granada TV sitcom ' Faith In The Future'

3. Paradise Is Here (Primitive Dance/ 1987) 

Somewhere in the mid 80's in an attempt to figure out why so little human progress is made without banging heads together, I was grappling with a book 'Beyond Violence' by the Indian mystic Krishnamurti. Though I lost him on his main issue, I was taken by a notion he had...that this precise instant in time is in fact the very first instant of the future and that therefore the way to create one's ideal future is to always completely live in this moment now. To a confirmed dreamer, the idea that all the time I'd spent imagining how brilliant things would be whenever... if only...etc was time wasted, came as a bit of a shock. Even so, a keen instinct for survival made me quickly turn this psychic ground-shift to my advantage and this song is the result.

Tina Turner and Cher both subsequently recorded it. Hare Krishna. This is a rarely heard, quintessentially 80's remix done at the time by Stephen Lipson for release as a single. Thanks also to Betsy Cook for her keyboard and vocal additions..additions...additions. Hey, mute that repeat echo.

4. Nothing But The Same Old Story ( Hard Station / 1981)
 

I went over to live in England in January '69 with the Johnstons, four of us in a VW Beetle with two guitars and a banjo and the roof rack covered in tarpaulin and held down with elastic spiders. We arrived in London and for the next four years played all over the UK and Europe in folk clubs, of which there were hundreds back then, concert halls too, radio and TV. We put out five or six albums which were well regarded at the time but which disappeared for a couple of decades and have only now begun to trickle back into the marketplace again. I lived generally in North West London, Willesden Green, Shepherds Bush, and for entertainment when I wasn't gigging went to Irish pubs like The White Harte in Fulham B'way or The Favourite in Holloway Rd where you could hear the best in Irish traditional music from the older players who had come over in the 40's and 50's.

The clientele were mostly Irish who had a fierce thirst from working maybe the roads or the building sites or on the buses and some younger and more educated who were becoming accountants or civil servants and young Irishwomen looking to find them. It was a tough time to be Irish in London. The Celtic Tiger hadn't yet roared. America was a long way away, slightly out of reach. In London, we were still an under class and we kept ourselves mostly to ourselves. Things in Northern Ireland were falling apart. People kept their heads down. Later in 1980 when I was writing the songs for Hard Station this period all came back to me in a rush and this song was a closing of the circle.

Irish people all over the world still get kind of involved, like, when they hear it. Don't mess with me..ok!

5. The Lakes Of Pontchartrain (1978)
  

After the collapse of my previous band The Johnstons I was stuck in a going nowhere period in New York City in late 73 when I got a letter from my friend, the uileann piper Liam O'Flynn asking me to come home and join Planxty, the great Irish folk band of that era. It was a complete change of direction for me. Although I had recorded lots of traditional music and songs in the late 60's/ early 70's with the Johnstons, I was at that time moving in a contemporary songwriting direction. Arriving home in Ireland the following year, the Planxty album that was currently in the shops included a song sung by Christy Moore, 'The Lakes Of Pontchartrain'. I loved it.

Two or three years later when the band had broken up and I was touring with Andy Irvine, I drifted back to the song and eventually decided to do my own version when it came to recording my first solo album 'Welcome Here Kind Stranger' in 1978. It quickly became one of my most popular songs and for years later and to the present day people ask me to sing it. This is a totally new recording as faithful as I can be to the original.

6. Trick Or Treat ( Trick Or Treat/ 1991)  

It's ten o'clock in the morning. Most singers are still croaking, afraid they've now finally lost the voice and will never sing as good again. Most singers are determined not to face up to finding out the truth until at least two in the afternoon. Bonnie Raitt walks into studio, cracks a blue joke (for a change), stands in front of the mike, opens her mouth and this sound comes out. It's like, not fair. Anyway I do my best to deal with, on the one hand, giggling like an idiot (which is what I always do when I hear something brilliant) and wanting to pour caustic soda into her diet coke.

Later in the afterglow of creative fervour, I say 'I wrote this song last night which might be something you could relate to'.. picked up a guitar, footered around for the bit of paper in the pocket that I'd scribbled the words on the night before and for the first time blundered through a new song called 'Luck Of The Draw'. A twinkle came into the Raitt eye and she says, 'Hmmm, that sounds like an album title, Paulie... Sing it again!'.. Later still in New York as I'm finishing the track I'm reminded of being in that city in '72, buying the first Steely Dan record 'Can't Buy A Thrill' and giggling like an idiot when I hear Elliott Randall taking off into his solo on 'Reelin' In The Years'. How come? Well across the room is Elliott Randall and he's playing a solo on my song and it's the same sound all over again.

What is it about humans that we can have this much fun and still find something to complain about? Trick or treat, baby, that's the game, One day passion, one day pain. Paul brady: keyboards, acoustic guitar and vocals, Bonnie Raitt: guest vocal, Jeff Porcaro: drums, Elliot Randall: solo electric guitar, Michael Landau: electric guitar, Billy Schlosser: percussion. Recorded at The Village Recorder, Santa Monica and The Hit Factory, New York. Produced by Gary Katz, engineered by Wayne Yurgelun. Mixed at Olympic Studios, London by Bruce Lampcov.

7. Trust In You (Spirits Colliding/ 1995)  

Written on a scuba-diving holiday in Sharm El Sheik, Egypt in the early 90's this one goes back to a favourite theme, some might say obsession,... how difficult it is for men and women to get along together, programmed as we are to respond in opposing ways to most anything that requires a reaction. Sometimes I'll tease this one out like drops from a still, each word attempting to scald the tongue.

This time I'm in my ' Here come ol' flat top' humour slashing paint across a sonic carpet in a big mess of vowels, loving the nonsense of it all. Musically it's two colours...verses in petroleum blue-green, choruses, prairie yellow and gold. This is a remix with new additions which Alasdair McMillan and I did for fun in my studio in January 1999.

8. Not The Only One (True For You /1983)  

One of my early songs, written just after the release of Hard Station has me in a place somewhere between the South Seas and Memphis Tennessee, grass skirts waving through a sun-shimmer of gasoline. Something about the simpicity of the language of love songs from the 60's soul era always turns me on. Big fat words like 'signify' and 'motivate', phrases like 'true loving perfection'. I'd spent some glorious years in the sixties singing Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Otis Redding and I wanted to have some fun digging around in there.

Of course when it came out the other end it didn't sound like anything but me. This was another one that I came to sing late in the 'True For You' recording sessions. I'd unwisely recorded the song in a key right at the top of my vocal range which was cool when I'd be bounding with energy on stage or something but weeks into an album and stressed out I struggled to get up there and winced ever since when I heard it. Like Steel Claw this is also a new vocal, relaxed and languid like the arrangement.

Rather than remix the entire track I dubbed my voice onto the backing track of the original mix which I always thought sounded great. Phil Palmer's guitar on this is just gorgeous. Imagine my surprise when almost a decade later Bonnie Raitt covered this song on her beautiful album 'Luck Of The Draw'.

9. The Island (Back To The Centre /1985)   

Figuring out what to say about this song is almost as hard as writing it was in the first place. In early Eighties Ireland emotions were very high. Things had come to a head in the North. People were on hunger strike and dying. The Lebanon, Nicaragua, El Salvador, South Africa were all daily bearing witness to our capacity for cruelty, shortsightedness and greed. All around us politicians and public figures roaring drunk with their certainties.

I kind of wanted to give voice to this other ordinary man who was powerless to affect anything on a grand scale but was just trying to thread a way through all the emotional flak and stay in touch with what humans were designed to do. one to one. It was a controversial thing to be going on about at the time. If you're not with us, you're against us. Turning your back on your own. Many friendships ended in those days. The subsequent popularity of this song, due also in no small measure to Dolores Keane's beautiful rendition on 'A Woman's Heart' makes me feel that although I wasn't sure what I was dealing with, something was being said that needed to be said.

10. Crazy Dreams (Hard Station / 1981)  

Most people who know me think of this as my theme song. It was inhabiting me musically for years. Back in the early 70's before I'd even begun my decade in Irish traditional music I'd written the music. It began life as a silly song called 'Hey Mr Promotion Man' or something. I wisely put it aside until I had something worth saying. Back when I was young my mother and father were great dancers together. Their party piece in Donegal on summer holidays was the tango. Nobody could dance the tango in that part of the world. Very cool.

Sean, my father, also loved singing the big songs like La Paloma and La Golondrina. I would accompany him on the piano when I got old enought to handle it. It came on down to me. Crazy Dreams is really an Argentinian tango cruising along in some opentop Chevy on a never ending highway in Arizona. Lyrically it's starts you freezing on a platform in Flushing NY in 1973 waiting for a train to bring you anywhere but where you are and ends you up in Ireland with the woman you love. Isn't it a great thing, a song?

11. Follow On (Back To The Centre/ 1986)  

Back as a young child on summer holidays in Bundoran, County Donegal, my memories in and out of hostelries where my mother and father would spend evenings singing and reciting included snatches of the popular songs of the day. Every July lots of people used to come on holiday from Scotland to Donegal bringing their songs with them.

One that stuck had a stirring chorus like 'Come along, Come along, let us step it out together'. ' Stormy weather' was in there too somewhere. I've always loved that strain of Northern Irish / Scottish melody. The Caledonian connection. Years later I jumped aboard and did my own version. I guess this is my dark side coming out again. Difficult times. Dear Lord, bring this child home safe.

12. Just In Time 

'Ye're not from around these parts', says the boyo at the bar in the Mills, Ballyvourney to Roy Wooten, a man as like an Ethiopian prince as you'll ever see. The Wooten brothers had just arrived to add their magic to Spirits Colliding. Roy aka 'Future Man' plays all manner of drums and percussion..all out of a box he carries around with him and plugs into the wall. He and his brother Victor on bass and Bela Fleck had just come in from Montreux in Switzerland and were putting the finishing touches to some songs of mine including this one.

Written after a boy's night out in Dublin which had us starting out whinging about our respective partners and ending up realising how lucky we were after all. I eventually took this track to Bow Lane in Dublin where Andrea, Sharon and Caroline Corr sang the answering chorus. Daughter, Sarah Brady, added her voice later.

13. The Homes Of Donegal ( Back To The Centre / 1985)
 

Lifford, Ballindrait, Murlog, where my father was schoolteaching, The Alt, Convoy, Raphoe, Castlefin, Killygordon, Stranorlar, Ballybofey, Barnesmore Gap where the yellow and red CDR railbus tootled along on the way to Donegal town, Laghey, Ballintra, Ballyshannon, Bundoran where the 'duck eggs' ( As Cormac McCready would call the country people in for the day) would paddle in the surf with handkerchiefs on their heads to ward off the sun. Then up through Letterkenny to Ramelton and Rathmullan, Creeslough and Kilmacrennan where the people would wait by the roadside to wave congratulations to the new priest on his way home after the ordination, fires lighting up the bogs dotted around Muckish mountain like Apache camps.

The swim in Marble Hill. chicken and chips in Portnablagh. Then over to Gweedore and Bunbeg and down through Glenties and Killybegs. Once in a while later to stray into Inishowen as far as Buncrana or Moville...wild people. Sure they eat their wains up there. Bridie Gallagher, the great Irish singer of the Fifties and early Sixties first made this song famous. It was around so long I originally thought it was a traditional song. Now I know it was written by a Donegal man called Sean McBride from around the Mountcharles area who recently died in his 90th year on the island of Inishturc off Mayo. Go ndéana Dia grásta ar d'anam, a Sheáin!

14. Arthur McBride (1976)   

I was in Rhode Island in 1973 staying with a singer-songwriter friend, Patrick Sky. The Johnstons, the group I'd been with since '67 had ground to a halt and I was flat broke. I decided to try and put together a solo set of songs and get some gigs, anywhere. My set was bizarre. A Hank Williams song, a Leadbelly song, a Van Morrison song, a Beatles song, an early gauche version of Crazy Dreams, an early song of mine 'Continental Trailways Bus', from a Johnstons record and some Irish traditional folk songs and instrumentals. Among these was a song called Arthur McBride.

Appearing in many different versions on folk records throughout the 60's I was well familiar with it in most of its versions. The one I now sang was one I arranged and adapted from a printed version I found in a book called' A Heritage of Songs, The Songs of Carrie Grover' , a Maine woman with Irish and Scottish ancestry. When I returned to Ireland the following year I first performed it with the band Planxty at the Carlton Cinema in Dublin. It kind of captured the imagination of the public at the time and became one of my most popular songs ever since. This is a new recording made in 1998. It really hasn't changed much in twenty five years.

I am very pleased to be able to include in the site a tablature of this song by Andrew DuBrock of Acoustic Guitar magazine. This was included in the September edition of the magazine and I am indebted to them for its inclusion here.

Finally a word of apology to Wheel Of Heartbreak, Dance The Romance, The Game Of Love, Helpless Heart, The Awakening, The Soul Commotion, Blue World, Dreams Will Come, Dancer In The Fire, Hard Station, Busted Loose, I Want You To Want Me, Love Made A Promise, Trouble Round The bend and the rest.... I love you all. I tried hard to fit you in too. Next Time! In the meantime, I'll make sure they know where to find you.

Paul Brady