Paul J Bolger

Description

PAUL J BOLGER


THE ALBUM

Paul J Bolger began writing and performing his songs at an early age. Moving between the arts since leaving college he has made a successful career in publishing and film, most recently as Art Director on the forthcoming animated Riverdance movie. Latterly however, he's returned to recording and releasing new music for the first time after a number of years. Like a musical fox PJB has returned to his song-writing den.

The songs contained on this album are a mix of old and new. They were worked up from ideas and demos PJB brought with him when he went to visit producer Hugh Christopher Brown on Wolfe Island, Ontario in summer 2018.

While the songs are not connected as such the underlying motifs of personal loss, tongue in cheek bravado and astutely observed stories tie the album together. Whether the writing reflects hidden or slightly vague truths or flights of fiction the songs work on singular concepts. The lyrics are clear and often conversational – a person recalling a past event, asking a question or speaking direct to a loved one lost or won.

If there any recurring themes to the record they might be love, life, death and most important of all - survival.

Celtic Rock legends Horslips coined the term “Bog Gothic� to sum the genre PJB explores with his song writing. This album is a testament to that – even if we are not quite sure what the genre is other than to say it more than tips its hat to Old World sensibilities set to New World sounds.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------THE SONGS

1. SWIM

This was originally written and recorded in the 1990’s. This version is a fresh reworking of that old tune about the memory of the one that got away, but also the one that won’t go away – from inside the singer’s head.


2. HOW MANY MORE TEARS?

A relationship on the rocks that is worth saving is worth singing about.


3. WEDDING GOWN

A cinematic Bog Gothic refrain about a father’s coming to terms with tragedy as his daughter loses her life to domestic abuse and there was nothing he could do about it, just like when her birth took his wife. Originally written in one sitting, as a flow of consciousness, the story began as a poem, became a screenplay and finally found its way to music.


4. PILLARSTONE

A tongue in cheek semi-autobiographical romp describing some of what PJB faced when he returned to live in his small Irish hometown after years travelling and working around the world. Some people there had no concept that anyone they knew could make a living from art. He heard some thought he had either won the lottery or, as the song says, lived on the wrong side of the law. A bit of hard rocking fun.


5. TWO WRONGS

A rootsy ode to playing it straight with your better half and knowing two wrongs do not a right make, especially when one of the two people involved makes the mistake of dancing with the “enemy�.


6. ALL THOSE THINGS

A deathbed plea for forgiveness put to song where the one leaving this mortal coil tries to reconcile whatever he said or did in the past with a loved one.


7. UNKIND

A repentant killer, alone in his cell, recalls the advice his mother told him the day he left home. It’s fair to say he did not heed her words.


8. I BELIEVE

Originally written as a paean to romantic love this song might remind us that while thoughts and prayers might help some people get through these strange days of self-isolation and social lockdown it is more important you tell your someone special how you feel about them. As the lyrics says, “three small words, a telephone�.