VILLAGERS - THAT GOLDEN AGE

I had foolishly dismissed the new Villagers record. I knew Conor O’Brien was the real deal but I hadn’t given him the time that I think it takes to be smitten. 

Then one evening I stumbled across Culture Night on RTE and there was O’Brien with an orchestra conducted by the awesome David Brophy singing I Want What I Don’t Need. I was enraptured. What a song.

As a preacher it had that killer punch line of the title in all of its nine verses. It reminded me of Rich Mullins’ (whom O’Brien will never have heard of) who sings: “I'd rather fight You for something I don't really want/Than to take what You give that I need”. O’Brien speaks to the individual soul and the entire society: 

 

And I want to be the only one

Who has reached the peaks they all dream of

And I want the glory of the deed

I want what I don’t need

 

There's a fairytale we call "Free Will"

It was funny then, and it's funny still

And at the heart of it lies an endless greed

Because we want what we don't need

 

That was the door opened and I walked through. That Golden Time became like a spiritual devotional. 

In Truly Alone there’s a wee echo of Gary Lightbody’s Snow Patrol lyric from The Beginning on their new album The Forest Is The Path “‘Cause I wanna be in love/Without being loved in return”. Though neither would have known the other’s line both touch on the theology of the grace of God.

 

To give your love for nothing in return

To know your worth in spite of what you earn

To be at peace with the great unknown

Truly alone

 

Of You Lucky One O’Brien has himself said, “Corruption of the soul and disingenuous motivation are the order of the day, so I thought it best to serve with a side plate of the macabre and sinister.”

The title track begins like Bowie’s Space Oddity, then slips into Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here and critiques this post That Golden Time…

 

Before the dulling of the mind

Encased in algorithm blues

Hollowed out the heavy stuff

Replaced it with a careful ruse

 

No Drama has similar theme as Radiohead’s No Alarms, No Surprises… please… 

 

Such a simple life, you're looking for

No drama, knocking at the door

 

Behind The Curtain gets close again to what might be most wrong with the world..

 

We keep passing the blame - it's a funny old game

Everyone is going insane

And we're playing at God 'cause he's gone for a walk

While nobody listens and everyone talks

 

And the closing Money On My Mind takes us to the root of all evil. If I still had my old radio show I’d have played this alongside Bruce Cockburn’s Passing The Cage…

 

I was trying to be someone, anyone but me

Clinging on so tight to a sense of injury

But we're all under the hammer and they've got us on our knees

We've got money on the mind

Monеy on the mind

 

I cannot remember my soul taking such a consistent interrogation since David Gray’s Sell Sell Sell album. Conor O’Brien is like a modern day blend of Jackson Browne’s 70s albums of introspection and the early Church fathers unpacking a spirituality for everyday living. 

Musically That Golden Age is sparse but full of that melodic ingenuity we have come to expect and seductive voice that intrigues to draw us in. It is intoxicating in the very best of ways.

Comments

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