


Go Slow – Live on the lake
It's less than two weeks to Christmas. I'm sitting in a coffee shop, surrounded by Christmas lights. On the radio - "I don't like cricket - I love it". A painted snowman wearing a black top hat stares at me from the window with two uneven black eyes. Today is Wednesday and I've made an arrangement with myself to make Wednesday website day. Tell me why is it hard to make arrangements with yourself?
This week I want to share a song that I recorded last month in Switzerland... This song has been in the air for a year or more now and has taken a long time to come together. Some songs are like that... tricksy, crafty things. I can't say for sure if it's done yet, or if it's as good as I think it should be. Sometimes it's difficult to tell what a song is. But with this one I must be patient. That is the central theme of the song... to be patient with things as they unfold... that every step in becoming is important, that it's not good to rush things.

This was filmed on the lake in Brienz, Switzerland, which is one of my favourite places in the world. Filmed on an iPhone by my friend René, a guitar maker, a Jedi of wood and an altogether wonderful human being. He filmed with the phone in one hand and an oar in the other. You can hear the oar cut the water has we slowly turn around to take in all the mountains behind us. Hope you enjoy the song - if you do, please share on your Facebooks / Twitter / take a screen shot, print it out and put up on your fridge ... however you can make the songs travel is good 🙂
Go Slow
"Noise, when the lights go out in your playground mind.
Noise in the dance club that's your heart sometimes
and there's noise in your muscles aching to climb
but there's quiet underneath this that you're trying to find
Go Slow, Go slow, good change will slowly come
Go slow and know that this is your becoming
Yours alone
Well a man gets lost in the stories that he tells
Be kind with the names that you give to yourself
and I know that you're running to be more than you are
don't the stars have their rhythms , it's the same in your heart
Go Slow, Go slow, good change will slowly come
Go slow and know that this is your becoming
In your rise, in your fall, in your dusk, in your dawn
In your changing mind, in your animal heart
Go Slow...
Go Slow, Go slow, good change is slowly coming
Go slow and know that this is your becoming"
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The Great Trade

Introducing "The Great Trade"
For the past couple of years, in fits and starts, with great bursts of creativity quickly followed by long periods of distraction or working on other things, songs have been coming together for a new project called The Great Trade. These songs have been co-written with my friend Brian Murphy, a fellow Mullingar native who has contributed electric guitar and lap steel on my last two records.
The first beginnings of this project came when we were on tour in the UK and Holland in 2013. We were both looking for a way to play some shows outside of Ireland and somehow this tour came together. The entire tour lasted about three weeks I think and in that time we spent a lot of time together in vans, trains, hotel rooms, back stage areas and coffee shops. So much of being on tour involves waiting. You're always waiting for the show to start it seems. Hurry up and wait. We filled these spaces with chatter and dreamings and wandering conversations. Out of some of these conversations came songs, or the beginnings of songs, the outlines of ideas.
It was interesting to be kicking around song and melody ideas with another human being for a change. It was exciting and had a speed and energy that I don't often encounter when working on my own. This was the first signs of something coming together. There was a feeling, still is, that we could write some good songs together and more importantly enjoy challenging each other to write well.
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The Great Trade
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The Great Trade
After this 2013 tour I went on to write and record my "Outlines" album and then tour that. Brian has been busy with his other original project "Arrow in the Sky" and playing guitar with the band Cronin. In this way the time gets filled. We grabbed some time here and there in 2014 / 15 but have really turned our attention back to the project this year. In April we recorded our first video with the help of Mark Bennett and Darragh Glennon. The song is called "Blackberry Wine" and was inspired by a book I read about the life of Billie Holiday. I hope you enjoy:
Please let me know what you think. Does it sound different to my solo stuff ? If you have a moment to share the track on Facebook / Twitter so other folk might here it that would be super!! Songs get lonely too you know. Share it aboot.
Good wishes and thanks for reading
~ Peter
Blackberry Wine (Lyrics)
Meet me in the after-hours We'll drink blackberry wine
There's a place not far from here I think you're gonna like
Caroline has fixed a little something for your mind
I've picked a dress to match your eyes
You're gonna sing tonight
Let's go to the good time house where the wine never spills
Let's go to the good time house where nobody sees in
INTO this LOW HEAVEN
Pull the sheet from the piano they wanna hear you sing
Fly on up there don't be frightened, show a little skin
Try anything you like
Little Bird don't be shy
Let's go to the good time house where the wine never spills
Let's go to the good time house there's no such thing as sin
DOWN in this LOW HEAVEN
-solo-
Fire cracks, opera echoes, Suzie cuts the deck
Horn players all blown out just blown in from the night
Here on top of the world
Little bird why so still
Let's go to the good time house where the wine never spills
Let's go to the good time house where nobody sees in
I won't hit you too hard honey no just a little sting
HERE in this LOW HEAVEN

Songwriter’s Journal – August 26th 2014
I hope there is some small insight or value in this to you dear reader:
Tuesday, August 26, 2014

ALCOHOL: 1 whisky
ENERGY: 7
MOOD: 8.5
WAKE: 6:52 am
It is a grey day, not pretty, windy, not inspiring. But it is a day all the same and I will be thankful to have it before me. For some reason I woke up pretty early this morning, before 7am. It was still quite dark then - these days are getting darker and darker - but I felt strangely awake for such an early hour.
Read More
Exceptional Irish Songwriters: Damien Rice
In this series I take a look at some of my favorite Irish songwriters. Some you may know, others you may not. With any luck you’ll make some new musical friends along the way… Please enjoy… Mr. Damien Rice
There Once Lived a Beast and Beauty
I remember it well... The first time that I saw. He was wearing a duffel coat the color of sand, hood-up like a monk. It was a winter night in Mullingar and Damien Rice was opening a show for a songwriter called Hally, who had just released an album called "A fascination with Poppy". I was around seventeen years old, with a great love for music, but no particular interest in songwriters. But something about this Rice guy caught my attention. It may have been his intensity? his voice? the songs? Probably all three. There was a sense of mystery about him, a story... That story was that he had walked away from a band seemingly on the edge of success (Juniper), travelled around Europe, and even spent some time living as a farmer in Tuscany. So far, so romantic. Read More

In the Beginning.
I've been told that when I was very young, I would sometimes sit in the field behind my Grandmother's house, hitting on plastic bottles and singing "Let it be" by the Beatles. Mrs Byrne, a retired music teacher who lived next door to my Grandmother, would tell my Granny that she saw some ability in me. I have no memory of this, but it's a nice picture to have. Read More

The Songwriter’s Guide To Album Release Day:

Today is the 24th October 2014. This is the day that "Outlines" my fourth studio album, is available for the first time in digital stores the world over. You'll find it on itunes, amazon, spotify and a host of other places that albums go to wait for hungry music-lovers (OR music-hungry lovers!) to come along and snap them up. Read More

The World is Wide
"The World is Wide" official video (By Lucy Jones) coming this month... Listen to the album track and see stills from the video below:
I've got a friend called Lucy. Lucy is a video maker, and a saint. Last year at a show, she heard me play a song called "The World is Wide" and she was struck with the idea to make a video for it. Well I'm delighted to tell you that she's done it! She followed through and turned the idea into reality, and it looks beautiful. Read More

Exceptional Irish Songwriters – Rhob Cunningham
In this series I take a look at some of my favourite Irish songwriters. Some you may know, others you may not. With any luck you'll make some new musical friends along the way... Please enjoy... Mr. Rhob Cunningham. Read More

Tea, Chocolate, Music, Books.

Exceptional Irish Songwriters – Emmett Tinley
