“And I am nothing of a builder
But here I dreamt I was an architect
And I built this balustrade
To keep you home, to keep you safe
From the outside world”
Colm Meloy
Our Jake and Sarah were home for a few days last week and we had many lovely dinners and chats. We also had several games of Uno, all of which I won, and watched several movies that we let Sarah pick. Sarah will never be allowed to pick a movie in this house again. Over one of our lovely dinners Jake mentioned Desert Island Discs, or at least he mentioned the concept of it, without realising that it was based on a radio programme that the BBC have been broadcasting weekly since the 29th January 1942. He and Sarah said that it was now a ‘thing’ to share your seven songs that you’d take to a desert island. I told them that you were also provided with the complete works of Shakespeare and the Bible, but were allowed to take another book, and a luxury item.
That in turn led on to me telling them about Kathy Burke’s podcast, ‘Where There’s A Will, There’s A Wake’. Similar to Desert Island Discs, each week she has a celebrity guest, and they are asked about their final meal, how they’d like to die, what they imagine public reaction would be, where their obituary would be published, where the ceremony would be, who’d be there, who’d give the eulogy, burial or cremation, where would the afters be, and what would to be left to whom in the will, and what would you not want anyone to find.
Both are done in a light hearted fashion, but there are sometimes touching moments.
I’ve been thinking this week what I’d say if I was asked to do either, and knowing that I’ll never be, decided to pretend that I have. This is a blend of both programmes.
Oh, and before I start, I’m not dying…well I am, but so are you…by which I mean I’m no closer to death that I was a week ago…although, again, technically, I’m a week closer…as you are.
Anyway, enjoy !
Last Supper – I’m not a huge fan of starters or desserts, so I’ll just have a main course. I will have a large bottle of Morreti, ice cold, as an aperitif, then when my meal is served I will have an incredibly large glass of Rioja. I have very fond memories of homemade meatballs in an oxtail gravy, served with mashed potato when I was a kid, but when my own kids were at Threemilehouse primary, and my Soulmate was away, I made a huge vat of it, sure that they’d love it. They didn’t , so I ended up eating all of it myself, and haven’t really fancied it since. We traditionally have steak and potato cakes with a whiskey and cream sauce, and onion rings, on a Saturday night, which I love cooking, and eating. But whenever I’m very hungry, or thinking fondly of food for no apparent reason, I always think of the Chinese takeaway Eileen and I used to have every Sunday evening from the Flaming Wok in Clane when we lived there. Eileen would order chicken with green peppers in a black bean sauce , with fried rice, and proving that you can take the boy out of Monaghan , but you can’t take Monaghan out of the boy, I would order chicken balls and chips. But the magic happened when we dished them out, we each had half of each others. I’m drooling over the keyboard now, thinking of dipping half a chicken ball in the black bean sauce and then coating it in fried rice before spearing a piece of chicken and a chip, and …heaven. I generously left all of the green peppers for Eileen. I’d have a Guinness instead of a dessert.
Song #1 – The Pogues ‘A Pair Of Brown Eyes’
Unlike most Irish households , when I was growing up, we rarely watched The Late Late Show, due to Dad’s unrelenting hatred of Gay Byrne. But for some reason, when I was 16 or 17, I was passing through the living room as Dad was flicking between channels and The Pogues were playing, and I was transfixed. Dad switched to something else and I asked him to go back. I bought the tape of ‘Rum, Sodomy, & The Lash’ in Devine’s record shop the next day. It was different to anything else. It struck a chord. Still think of it every so often and remember seeing them play live in the old SFX in Dublin. All fond memories. It’s a song of lost love. I think it would have been me if Eileen and I hadn’t ended up back together.
My Death – Years ago my friend Barra mentioned over a pint that someone from the band Bagatelle had died and he thought it was sad. I said it was only sad that he hadn’t died because a plane carrying all the band members from Smokey had crashed on top of him. He thought I was terrible. I was going to write that my ideal death would be behind the wheel of a minibus plunging into the old quarry in Castleblayney carrying the complete line up from that years Monaghan Town Country Music Festival. I even thought of writing that I’d make sure that Jimmy Buckley, Michael English and Mike Denver were all sitting up the front. But that would make me sound terrible. I then thought that I’d like to die while out running. It would be a sunny day. I’d be feeling fit, the running would be going well, nice pace, no stress, no niggles. I’d be listening to Ray…and then I wouldn’t. I’d be gone. Because of what I’ve already written , it is probably only fair that I died while out running because I was run over by Nathan Carter’s tour bus.
“But wouldn’t that mean that Ray dies too ?”
Anyway, what I’ve finally opted for is simply to fall asleep in front of the fire on a Saturday night after a nice dinner with the family, having a glass of wine, and watching The Last Waltz movie, again, and explaining, to Eileen and the kids who all the special guests are, their history with The Band, telling them to play close attention to the next bit…rewinding good bits and playing them again…telling everyone about which of the artists I’ve seen in real life…at great length….
Song #2 David Bowie’s ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide’ – the live version from the double album Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars ( The Motion Picture Soundtrack )
Ever since Cyril Boylan gave me the lend of ‘Changes Two Bowie’, a compilation album, in 1983, I have been a devoted fan of Bowie. I love countless songs of his, but this album was a ‘Santa’ present ,from ‘Santa’ obviously, but it was still a surprise. I know that my Mum had had a word with Santa. And I was 17, and I felt seen. Before you ask, yes , Santa still called to our house when we were teenagers, and in fact still calls to both our house and Mum and Dad’s. The album is a recording of the final Ziggy Stardust concert, and just before this song, he told the band , road crew and audience that this was his last, and it always struck me that it must have been such a shock to the band, but that they carried on playing. So this song reminds me of Mum, all of our Christmases, and Bowie…and that time I met him on the bus to Galway…true story….
Public Reaction – I think the most immediate , and common, reaction will be “I thought he died years ago ?”. And some might say “Finally !”.
But ideally I’d like what my friend Colm Keegan gets on his feedback sheets when he goes into schools to discuss his poetry :
“Fuckin mint and actually funny while others are shite”
“Genuinely a funny person and wasn’t boring.”
“Very nice.”
“Fresh mind with a fresh beard”
And my absolute favourite , which I’d take in a heartbeat –
“Really funny and he got me out of French.”
Song #3 Puccini’s ‘Madama Butterfly, Act II : Coro a bocca chiusa ( Hummingbird Chorus )
I’d love to be writing that I fell in love with this song by stumbling across a string quartet playing it in a little square in Santiago, one twilight, while wandering around, holding hands with my Soulmate. But my love of some classical music, and Puccini in particular , was actually the result of an advert for British Airways in 1989. The song they used was Delibes ‘The Flower Duet’, but being an idiot, and this being before the internet, I bought Puccini’s Madama Butterfly as I was sure an airline would be using a bird related tune.
I’ve no idea what’s happening in the song, but I always make up a story in my head when I’m listening to it. Eileen’s always in the story.
The Funeral – I don’t want a church funeral. I don’t mind if it’s in an old church, but I don’t want a religious ceremony. Ideally it would be in a large marquee out in Rossmore Park. I’d leave instructions that coffee and tea would be provided by Tom in the CoffeeDoc as guest arrives. I’d like everyone to wear black tie and evening dress, but with funky runners instead of formal shoes. Music would be provided during the ceremony by a string quartet playing Radiohead songs. Although it won’t be a religious ceremony it will follow the format of a reading , poem, second reading, a few words by the MC, an invitation to share funny stories about me, and then everyone will be asked to stand and Fontaines DC will appear and play ‘Liberty Belle’ twice.
The first reading will be what I thought was Daniel and The Lion, no not the one in the lion’s den, the one where he removes a thorn from his paw, no not the St.Jerome one , the original Androcoles one. He’s an escaped slave, hides in a cave, wounded lion, removes a thorn from his paw, shares food, and the cave. Years later Androcoles is caught sentenced to death in the colloseum, by being fed to the lions, his lion is there, defends him, Emperor lets them go. Whenever we are asked how we met I always say that Eileen took a thorn out of my paw and I’ve followed her ever since.
The poem will be Colm Keegan’s ‘This Place’ which is about Monaghan.
The second reading will be the end of ‘The House At Pooh Corner’ by A.A.Milne, Chapter 10 : in which Christopher Robin and Pooh Come to an Enchanted Place , and We Leave Them There.
Won’t be a dry eye in the house.
The MC should be Shane Martin…if he isn’t run over by Nathan Carter’s tour bus before me. He’ll keep it ticking over.
And then everyone will be asked to stand and Fontaines DC will appear and play ‘Liberty Belle’ twice.
And that will be that.
Song #4 Fontaines DC ‘Liberty Belle’
I can’t remember where I was when I first heard ‘Boys In The Better Land’ , but I have listened to every song they’ve sung since, bought all of the albums, most of the tees, and been to see them 4 times. When I go around local schools to talk about The Drumlin Giants, I show them a few things that seem random, but are all connected to Monaghan, a school in Santiago, The Apollo 11 moon landing, Dracula, Baelarion The Black Dread from Game of Thrones and before the last one I show them I ask them to stand up, on their desks, and tell them I have Haribo for the best dancers, and then play a video of Fontaines DC playing Liberty Belle.
Every time I hear it now I can see all the kids rocking out and when it ends I can hear myself asking the kids ‘Do you know who that is ?’, and in every single class in every single school , the first answer is always ‘The Beatles’.
Burial or Cremation – I’m going for cremation, in a carboard box. I visited Zagreb with my best friends Micky and Ronan last year and we visited The Museum of Broken Relationships. We spent almost two hours there. It was heartbreaking, incredibly funny, and poignant. The premise of it is that there are mundane , everyday objects displayed as if they are sculptures, pieces of art, and in a very real sense, they are, and displayed beside them is a note explaining their relevance to a breakup, or distant memory of a love that’s gone.
You would cry reading some of them, smile with wonder at others, and snigger at the good ones.
Three that stood out to me were, a Polaroid photo of a lake, with a red biro arrow drawn on it, with the note “ A Florida lake where I skipped school with my boyfriend. The arrow indicates the spot where I first saw a penis in the sunshine.”
A diagram of a spectrum of a star, with the note “We are both astronomers. On my 26th birthday he sent me a spectrum of a star in the Orion constellation as my birthday gift. The star, named pi3, is 26 light years from Earth. He said ‘Look , at the time you were born , the light left this star, passing through the endless interstellar space, the countless dust and nebula, arriving here after a 26-light-year journey. So have you. Here you meet your starlight, and I meet you.’ I could only here the sound of my heart beating then. Though we have since broken up, every time I see the Orion constellation, I relive some sweet memories.”
And lastly, but most relevant, was an old , small black plastic film roll cannister with a small amount of ashes , and this note “ We were married for 33 years , growing up together, looking forward to being old together. The cancer took him in 4 months. He died a splendid man, a loving inspiration to all who knew him. He said ‘Life a life of Love’. He said ‘When I die give my ashes away in film cannisters. Have my friends blow them to all the ends of the earth’. I am in my 5th month of traveling around the world. I have sent him over Victoria Falls , into the Carribean , Indian, Atlantic, Adriatic, and Mediterranean seas, buried him in an elephant wall in Namibian desert, cast him off the Cape of Good Hope, hid him in a Capuchin crypt in Rome, scatterd him over a Croatian cemetery on All Saints Day, tossed him into the Plitvice Lakes…
Your ashes, The Host,
You left me in Summer with instructions to feed you to the world.
Your ashes are bitter on my tongue,
But sweet in the language of the earth.”
( The photo for today’s blog is of Ronan and Micky in that museum. It’s one of my favourites )
That’s what I’d like.
Song #5 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds ‘Jubilee St – Live in Copenhagen
I have three versions of this song on my world renowned SuperjetRobotDinosaurs playlist. The original album version, an acoustic version , just Nick playing a piano, and my favourite, the live version. I went to see him play live in Kilmainham with Baz and didn’t know that , live, he speeds up the ending of the song and goes mental. I loved it. It reminds me of going to gigs with great people.
The Afters – As we already have the marquee set up in Rossmore , and the Fontaines are there, it would be a shame to move on anywhere else. We’ll have catering from The Pig after the ceremony, and a free bar, which will only serve Moretti, Guinness, Moet & Chandon, Rioja, Jameson, and gin and tonics. I would hope that everyone has a raucously good time and stays until breakfast, in the CoffeeDoc.
Song #6 Thom Yorke ‘ Susprium’
It’s a song from a horror film I’ve never seen. It randomly popped up on a playlist and I immediately loved it. It’s not connected to a memory, or any place for me, and sometimes we need things like that. Things that are simply of themselves. And wonderful and beautiful.
The Will – Whatever I have will be my Soulmate’s. The only thing I would ask is that at my funeral all of my vinyl, CDs, teeshirts and sweatshirts are displayed and that after Robyn, Jake and Elliott get first pick, every one is allowed take one. Oh, and just one more request, I’d like Declan McElroy, Geraldine Watterson, and Kieran and Hilda, and all the McMahons to have to listen to all of my records before they’re dispersed.
At this point in Desert Island Discs they play the 7th song and ask about your extra book and your luxury item.
My luxury item would be a digital collection of all my photos from my phone. They are snapshots in time, but each time I look at one I remember where we were, what we said, and how we felt.
I’d like to think I have some time left to discover some new songs , so I’ll leave off picking the 7th, and for the book, I’d just take my chances with whatever Colm Gilmore suggested.
And at this point in Kathy Burke’s show she asks if the guest would like to come back as a ghost and haunt anyone in particular.
I know we came from starlight and that all of our atoms either stay around and become part of something new, or float off into the cosmos.
That’ll do me.
Toodles,
Paul
