Perhaps you are familiar with the unexpected hanging paradox. A prisoner on death row is told that he will be hanged one day next week and that he will not be expecting it. The prisoner ponders this and reasons thus:
- The hangman only works on weekdays, so I won’t be hanged on Saturday or Sunday.
- If I haven’t been hanged by the end of Thursday, I will be expecting to be hanged on Friday. So, if my hanging is going to be unexpected, it can’t be on Friday.
- But, having eliminated Friday, if I haven’t been hanged by the end of Wednesday, I’ll be expecting to be hanged on Thursday. So Thursday is out, too.
- And the same argument holds for Wednesday, Tuesday and Monday. So I won’t be hanged at all!
Then, on Wednesday, much to his surprise, the guards escort him to the gallows, and he is hanged.
Bearing in mind the condemned prisoner, when I tune in to Later … with Jools Holland, I have learned to expect the unexpected. True to form, last week’s programme turned up a wholly unexpected treasure in the form of Lisa O’Neill’s Silver Seed.
This is folk. Irish folk, steeped in the age-old traditions of the Emerald Isle. And yet, it is unlike anything heard before in the hallowed halls of Crotchety Mansions. I would have expected these walls to shudder at the sound of a wailing voice, to shrink at the almost tuneless plunking of the banjo. But, no. Some kind of madness fixed my gaze on the screen, sharply cocked my often fluffy ears, and sent the cogs of the Crotchety mind a-whirring. The singer had me spellbound.
Quite what had hijacked my thoughts was a mystery that took some time to unravel. Lisa O’Neill has released five albums to date, and I have now listened to them all. The thread of traditional Irish folk songs runs throughout, but the surprising thing about her work is how varied that material is. There are traditional and original songs. There are solo a cappella passages and songs where Lisa plays just a guitar, a piano or a banjo. There are tracks with two-part harmony and pieces that feature accordion, harmonium or cello. The tones and textures change from one track to the next thanks to guest musicians and their instruments. Nothing is predictable.
Silver Seed is from Lisa’s fresh-off-the-press album, All Of This Is Chance, but I’ve chosen the title track of her 2016 album, Pothole In The Sky, to illustrate both the sparse and the more sumptuous arrangements she is able to command.
This is a song about the unexpected. The singer was driving serenely along the road to heaven, when suddenly a wheel hit a pothole, the car veered to the left, and she found herself heading for hell instead.
On my way to heaven
. . .
Falling for the devil
This boy and his lies
. . .
I was on my way to heaven
Met a pothole in the sky
At first, we hear just a voice and plucked guitar strings. Then other sounds begin slowly to intrude. One by one we hear the muted wheeze of a harmonium, a hint of a violin, hushed backing voices, deep acoustic bass, a soft piano. By the end of the song, the naked idea has been dressed in the very finest of clothes: warm, elegant and fitting.
I’ll share one more song. Old Note is another track from All Of This Is Chance. This time, I invite you to pay special attention to the words – they’re not all decipherable to the ear, but you can read them in the text below the video.
Here is a song full of nostalgia and pathos. Those feelings tumble out from the hum of a harmonium, the sweet drone of a violin, and the sound of a young girl’s spoken voice in the fadeout.
Float old note, new among my mind
. . .
I can’t come to quantify the feelin’
I was walking home half in a dreamin’
. . .
And there I met another note long buried
And sat upon its shoulders was a memory
. . .
Float old note, new among my mind
This is one more song that will be added to Crotchety Man’s memory treasure chest, where it will stand shoulder to shoulder with the paradox of the unexpected hanging, each a reminder of the other.
Crotchety Man 