Tune in and buckle up with John Buckley McQuaid and “bicycle to the Stars!”

Patricia Killeen

Listening to Irish-born songwriter and musician John Buckley McQuaid’s song,  “This Is Where I Keep My Dreams”, I’m convinced his music should attain global recognition.

The lyrics are brilliant! His style is that of a troubadour with Leonard Cohen-like sounds and irony.

The songs use “easy melody”, but the lyrics cut to the bone while holding up a mirror to modern society.

Aside from his music, McQuaid is a successful artist with 500 paintings to his name and is currently working on a film script set in Ireland.

Fascinated by this Leonard de Vinci creative “package deal” I reached out to him and was delighted to get to know more about the man who had penned and sung songs that had pulled hard on my heartstrings. His musical output includes “Stations In The Sky”, a fairy tale with songs, along with « Valentine’s Days” an eBook of 29 songs and 29 videos.

He grew up in Stillorgan, “in a house with a piano and a garden” but has lived in Denmark since 1973.

He has made a great life for himself in Aarhus earning a comfortable living from his gigs in Denmark, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and more occasionally Ireland and the UK.

The Danish system for song rights for musicians is extremely well organized.

His sixth album, “This Is Where I Keep My Dreams”, an album of original songs about Ireland, is an account of the Diaspora: https://johnbuckleymcquaid.lnk.to/ThisIsWhereIKeepMyDreams

One of the songs, “Girls Who Lived In Hell”, is inspired by and dedicated to all those who endured the Hell of the Irish Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes.

Derek Scally of the Irish Times (https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/john-buckley-mcquaid-ireland-s-silence-is-a-comfort-zone- 1.4484612) said, “it mourns the babies sent abroad on “ships of grief and greed” and embraces the tens of thousands of Irish women forced by their fellow citizens to conceal “the shame/ that wasn’t theirs to hide”. https://vimeo.com/467231264

McQuaid’s song “Boxing Day”, echoes the poignant desolation of a couples’ meltdown, their disenchantment in disarray with the season’s ubiquitous tinsel and joy.

“Once they dreamed of Paris

They dreamed of it a lot

All the way to Carrickfergus

Was the furthest that they got.”

The beautifully-written and sung disillusionment is up there with the “Ballad of Lucy Jordan.”

The song reminds us that when so much emphasis is placed on everyone being happy, and when the humdrum cracks are too deep to cement, we are not alone.

McQuaid is also concerned about the effect of constant screens and omnipresent social media.

The “happy happy” story peddled on social media is not the majority of people’s lives.

It’s good to be reminded that other people can experience that horrible, sinking feeling as festivities dwindle and a reality that doesn’t match the festive season breaks back in. Psychoanalysts confirm, unfortunately it’s often, in the wake of Christmas tide, with a grey New Year on the doorstep, that things can become most bleak…

For me the icing on the album “This Is Where I Keep My Dreams”, is “Prodigal Kiss”.

McQuaid invites us to meet him back in his native Dublin, “at Clerys there under the clock. We’ll drive to Dún Laoghaire and go for a walk”.

With him we meander the streets of Dublin, McDaid’s pub, Saint Stephen’s Green etc., and the chorus sets the tone:

“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. ”

McQuaid also reflects on Oisín returning from “the land of his youth”[…] “though he’s long in the tooth For want of a horse, he’ll be taking the Luas“ […] “What wouldn’t he give for the things that he’ll miss A touch or a glimpse or a prodigal kiss? ” https://vimeo.com/467236532/70f6a4db35

McQuaid believes “money stays at the top and financial corruption is still rife in Ireland”.

Frustrated by seeing the destitute caught in the cross fire of what he believes to be a so-called trickle-down Irish economy, (more flood up than trickle-down says he), he released “Homeless Hotels”, a single from his next album, at the beginning of last year.

It is dedicated to the homeless and abused everywhere. https://youtu.be/jdVpGmA8Jso

McQuaid’s repertoire has great range and variety, and his next and seventh album will feature a couple of more comic songs, reminiscent of the old music hall and variety theatre scene.

In “Minus Millionaire” he portrays a “Prince of Fools”, who joyfully denigrates wealth and fame, who “has nothing to declare, except of course his genius, which no one will deny,” which echoes Oscar Wilde’s witty 1882 repartee, when questioned in the New York Customs house replying: “I have nothing to declare except my genius.”

Apparently, the customs officer was the only one not amused.

Genius, pathos, poetry, wit, humility, humorous hubris, storytelling and “Wildness”, intertwine in McQuaid’s lyrics and music.

Tune in, buckle up with John Buckley McQuaid and be ready to “bicycle to the Stars!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSrcZeXfBeI

Patricia Killeen is a Paris – based journalist and host of « Turning Points » on World Radio Paris