The voice of Clannad, MARIE BRENNAN talks us through the tracks on her new album
"FOLLOW THE WORD"
This song is based on the
missionaries that went from Ireland, bringing the word out there. I
write very much in a picturesque kind of way. The verses are very much
images of people sailing to foreign lands, or sailing out in gathered
haze, they didn't know where they were sailing into. A line that comes
up in the song twice, which is "the banner of hope", that's what they
were hoping would be the result at the end, that they were bringing
hope to people. The Irish part of it "you are my God, it's you that
gives me love today"... I threw in Gaelic things that I felt suited
the song.
"WHERE I STAND"
There's a line "Fear not the
stillness." We're not to be afraid of the quietness because God's
everywhere. There's another line, "now the flowerless trees bloom
carefully." It's that sense of hope again. The chorus of it goes, "A
wasted life I had in my hands, down the centred way I did stray. The
"centred way" being when you were a teenager or whatever and you want
to go the "cool" way. It's where you stray. I myself stopped going to
church in my mid '20s, and it was probably in my mid '30s when I
really realised that I wanted something more in my life than just on
the road, drink and rock'n'roll. I went through a bit of that. But I
was also inspired by my church in Dublin. There is a programme called
Teen Challenge that helps a lot of young people with drug addiction.
They spend maybe six months or so going through a programme, and they
come back and give testimony. It is so moving listening to them.
That's very much part of this song as well, of just imagining a life
where at 12 years of age you get hooked on heroin or something, and
finding life again through Jesus. It's wonderful! I was influenced by
listening to these kids' testimonies.
"HARD TO BREAK THE SEAL"
This relates to
Ireland, this conflict between traditions, Catholics and Protestants,
and being afraid to lose traditions. We feel that if we give something
away we're losing something. The song talks about building a bridge
across the land, so that we can sing God's name and pray in unison.
It's about not being afraid to let go of traditions, to try and
respect and unite in some way together. I think there is a new wave of
hope coming into Ireland, how fast I don't know, but there are people
wanting more. Rather than us being so judgmental towards somebody that
wants to be quiet when praying, or wants to dance when they worship,
we need to respect each other's diversity. We're all so different. God
gave us all different fingerprints. We honour and pray to God
differently, and it's up to us individually to find what is the right
path for us.
"TO THE WATER"
This is an image of Jesus getting
baptised and him talking to his Father in Heaven, asking to help him
see clearly what he was on earth for. It's really about baptism with
that gorgeous image of Jesus being baptised and Heaven opening up. The
image of two hands stretching out to guide us, or to bring us forward,
or bring us into the water.
"WHISPER TO THE WILD WATER"
I suppose there are
different connotations to the meaning of that line. I haven't got a
huge voice like Whitney Houston or whoever, it's quite a quiet voice
just bringing the Lord's message. "Whisper To The Wild Water" can also
be a whisper telling of God's love and the wild water being the people
out there not being aware of God's love. There's yet another
dimension. The fact that we think of God as great and mighty, yet when
he speaks to us it can be in a whisper. But sometimes we don't listen.
I like images with two or three layers of meaning. I think that's the
way my creative mind works. It's the way that a lot of traditional
songs used to be written.
"PEACEMAKER"
This is a special song. Last year I
was doing a couple of concerts, I did a short tour and I included the
song "Make Me A Channel Of Your Peace" in the programme because I love
the song and I love the Francis Of Assisi prayer. Then when it came
round to doing the album I just had an idea that it would be nice to
do something around that prayer. In the studio one day I was just
humming melodies, and then I came up with what you hear me singing as
the backing. Then I thought it would be nice maybe to speak a prayer
rather than sing something. I don't like my speaking voice so Denis
Woods, who was producing with me, thought wouldn't it be lovely to
have a child speaking. I asked my little son, who has done speech and
drama for a year, whether he would speak on the album. He said no at
first and I would never push him into doing anything. But then he said
yes. So I translated the middle part of the prayer into Gaelic and
took just some of the lines and got him to say them. It's very moving
for me, and the way it all happened was very nice and natural.
"AGELESS MESSENGERS"
It's about angels. When I'm
doing an album, I read about six or seven books at one time. I soak
myself in different kinds of words and atmospheres and themes. My
sister-in-law gave me a book at the beginning of the year about
angels, written by a woman called Hope Price. It's lovely, all these
different ways that we see angels, especially children. These
enormous, tall, statuesque, incredible beings and the images of swords
and wings; the images of people that come and help us and the next
thing they disappear; it just fascinated me, all the different
stories. It made me aware that we've all get angels protecting us sent
God. That song's really about that.
"I LATHAIR DE (IN GOD'S PRESENCE)"
This is a
hymn I wrote with my mum's choir involved. When I did a psalm with my
mum on 'Perfect Time' so many people loved it that I wanted to do
something again, rather than a psalm, this time a hymn. It's just
written as a hymn, in praise of the Lord, to guide me, give me
strength, praising him that he is the King of Heaven and earth. I went
down to the church in Donegal to do it as I did the last time. I
brought the engineer and just an ADAT machine and set up a couple of
microphones and we did it down there.
"LIFE"
People like the arrangement on this song.
There are guitar synths and Celtic pipes. The songs talks about the
joy and wonder and blessing we can find in this life.
"RINNE TU"
This is a song in awe of God's
creation. He made the sea, he made the mountains. I live in Dublin,
but I grew up in Donegal and I go back there a lot, so creation is a
recurring theme of mine! It's probably a very Irish thing, as well as
just being aware of our surroundings. I look at Psalms sometimes and
it feels like a painting to me, it's like a painting with words. The
chorus goes, "You made the water, you made the wind, you gave us
flowers and you gave yourself."
"MARY OF THE GAELS"
This is an instrumental. I
was trying to think of a nice name for it and in my books found that
St Bridget had a nickname, and it was Mary Of The Gaels. When I saw
that I thought wow! what a great title. St Bridget was a very, very
generous person, giving to the poor people, to the dismay of her
father who gave her a bad time for giving away so much!
"SIGN FROM THE HILLS"
On the last album I wrote
a kind of synopsis of St Patrick's life. I wanted to relay in some way
about St Column Kil. St Columba but he christened himself St Column
Kil, Kil being the trees, the woods and Column being a dove. He was
such a holy man and he went off to lona, so hence talking about "I
sail to the island E", and when I played it to my husband first he
went "Oh look! All the druggies will want to know where the island E
is." It's the Gaelic, it's I with an accent over the I and it's the
Gaelic for lona, would you believe. When Column Kil was born, they say
that there was a sign that came over the hills, there was a cloth, a
veil which came across to his mother. He was born into quite a
well-to-do family. It was indicated that she was going to have a
special son, and when an angel came to take the veil away she said,
"Why are you taking my colourful cloth away?" and he said "Because it
is to show you that Column Kil is just not for you but for everybody
else." There're lovely stories about him, that he had seen miracles,
even to the point that he had changed water into wine. He was one of
the translators of the Gospels at the time. I wanted to write
something about him.
"BE THOU MY VISION"
My Grandfather translated
this beautiful hymn into Gaelic many, many years ago. I've sung it in
the choir and everything. He didn't directly translate it, because you
can't really with Irish in that way, but it's the theme of it that's
within this. I just wanted to do it the way I felt, without touching
too much of the song, just as it is, the pure song. It's so gorgeous
and I just felt it was kind of a complete ending to the album.