Monthly Archives: July 2011

July 28, 2011 · 12:48 pm

July to September

Song number 16 (a rough version). Please click here to listen: July to September

Happy birthday, Sean … wish you were here. Love you always.

Happy birthday to Christopher too … neither of you will ever be forgotten.

July to September

In the hollow, there’s sweet music
At the setting of the sun
I can hear a choir of spirits sing
And now the shivering has begun

I have walked this winding road before
A long long time ago
Before I had known the saddest songs
Or made my way through fields of snow

All my life I will remember
Standing on dry land
From July to September
But October didn’t turn out as we planned
And some things we’re not meant to understand Continue reading →

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Filed under Ireland, Memories, Music

Tagged as bereavement, loss, love, Sean O'Brien, songs

July 19, 2011 · 10:19 pm

Sean and Clio in the Snow (new version)

We had a great weekend with Aedín and Aoife … we did a lot of singing in the house, and they sang in the pub on Saturday night (‘Lost Highway’, ‘Heart of Glass’ …).

As well as singing and playing the whistles on this track, Aedín recorded it … Pauline and I are very grateful to her for all the help. Looking forward to the next time!

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Filed under Death, Ireland, Memories, Music

Tagged as Cavan, Sean O'Brien, snow, songs

July 18, 2011 · 8:26 pm

Aaron Q …

… playing my guitar. A photo Sean took of his friend, in our garden at night, some years ago.

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Filed under Death, Ireland, Memories, Photography

Tagged as friendship, Sean O'Brien

July 14, 2011 · 11:09 pm

Some diary entries … June to August 2000

6/6/00 – We got Susanna out to school; Sean had lost his voice due to a cold. However, Pauline took him to Virginia to help her prepare the art exhibition.

7/6/00 – The second item [in a school show] was Susanna, with suit and briefcase, dong ‘Hello, My Name is Bob’. She didn’t quite give it as much as she had done in rehearsals, but did very well. She also played the ‘bold girl’ in a sketch, very well. Sean’s main contribution was as the boy who sits on a porcupine in the Roald Dahl poem – he did this very well (despite his sore throat), and got a lot of laughs. He also sang a Beatles medley with the others … Sean and Susanna were elated.

13/6/00 – Sean played outside at AJ’s – it was a lovely evening.

18/6/00 – The Noonans called – Sean was very glad to see Billy again.

20/6/00 – I moved a lot of soil, with some help from Sean.

24/6/00 – I had a look at the papers on the Internet and played football with Sean. The others all went fro a walk, to see Eamonn’s calves; Sean and I followed them but didn’t see them. Then Pauline rang from Nora’s to say that Sean could help to move calves if interested: I brought him down there on my crossbar. Continue reading →

Sean’s music 26 … The Zutons

‘Valerie’ is a track from what I now think of as the golden age of listening to music with Sean, while we were working or playing on our computers in the evening – probably in his Leaving Cert year of 2007/8 – and he introduced me to a lot of music I hadn’t known.

I really took to this track, and Sean used to play it a lot … I associate it with Against Me’s ‘Thrash Unreal’, which was another favourite at the time. The Amy Winehouse version is good, but we both preferred this one. The video is pretty cool too. It’s a fun song to sing and play on the guitar at a session, as I have discovered.

Sean never played any other Zutons songs as far as I remember. ‘Valerie’ is The Zutons for me, and the The Zutons are ‘Valerie’.