Menu
Ireland's political and cultural magazine
— October – November 2013
C
RY Before Dawn’s songs of solidarity
and social justice never percolated
into angry rants. Their indignant
rage was grounded by a sonic land-
scape that combined rock melodies with
traditional Irish instrumentation. They were
intense live because they never tried unnatu-
ral stunts to attract attention.
Ireland was a backward backwater. That
was the deeply ingrained image of those who
counted (literally) in the global popular music
industry. The perception lasted from the birth
of rock and roll until the late seventies. The
Boomtown Rats proved an Irish band could
ride a rapid catapult to British chart star-
dom. No endless slogging on the circuit as
with Rory Gallagher and Thin Lizzy, for them.
They flew high, to unparalleled peaks for an
Irish band singing their own songs. And like
Icarus they tumbled. In their wake, and rid-
ing a higher wave for far longer, U proved
that sustained success could be born in that
backward backwater.
The scrutiny of the talent scouts quickly
accompanied those breakthroughs in the
early s. They were eager to feed a world
market. Buoyed by the extraordinary profits
of the recently introduced CD and the market
power of MTV, they sought more chips for the
roulette table. They shone their torches on
nascent Irish talent and signed up unwashed
hordes and highly coiffed hopefuls ready for
their close-ups.
The rule book was generally applied with
diligence: form a band, get an image, tell eve-
ryone you were getting ‘serious interest’ from
record labels; if you attracted any record label
interest, ensure that everyone knew – and
pretend you didn’t care; possibly sign a deal.
And for the large number of acts who did sign
on the dotted line in the s? Most shriv-
elled from either under-exposure or, equally
fatally, over-exposure.
Some really worthwhile Irish artists
signed deals during the tumultuous decade.
I don’t need to name them, taste is subjec-
tive, and anyhow you know who they are.
Equally, lots of Irish potential lay undiscov-
ered. Of the bands which were rewarded with
contracts, many fell into two plastic fantas-
tic bubbles; prelapsarian Celtic abandon or
miserabilism of the newest order. The lat-
ter youths seemed to have been concocted in
petri dishes by Christian Brothers and Holy
Ghosts, to which essence of Morrissey and
Ian Curtis was added. Some bands managed
a foot in both camps. Either way, they were all
well-schooled in the tropes of rock and roll.
Tragically, they had inverted the formula for
success. They combined the glitter of Motown
with the soul of Las Vegas.
One band that stood out was Wexford’s
Cry Before Dawn. They were a four-piece
whose sound was augmented to impressive
effect by traditional instruments like the uil-
eann pipes. Live, they were sometimes joined
by a piper, Vinnie Kilduff. They were at their
best onstage: far ahead of most Irish bands.
They proved that if rock music was exciting,
traditional music had something to offer too.
They opened our minds and showed that our
musical history was a potent spring. While
most Irish bands were inventing their own
mythology and demanded to be the centre of
attention, Cry Before Dawn seemed content
to let the music speak. They appeared to enjoy
the music they were making rather than the
available hedonisms.
Their lyrics also set them apart. Singer
Brendan Wade, surrounded by traditional
music at home, was inspired and moved by
Planxty, the Bothy Band and Moving Hearts.
This trilogy of bands proved, without com-
promise, traditional music could appeal to
a young rock audience. They blazed a trail
around the live circuit at home and interna-
tionally. One voice in particular caught Wade’s
attention. He recalls:
“And Christy Moore started singing these
songs with such deep meaning and [then]
Moving Hearts, a very political band. And that
turned me on to trying to write about things
that I felt strongly about. I always liked poetry.
I had a shot. I had a go at it and eventually dis-
covered I wasn’t too bad at it”.
With Cry Before Dawn he was far better
than “not too bad at all”. Soon, and without
historical precedent, a self-managed band
from rural Ireland were attracting the major-
label scouts. Away from the twin lights of the
Pink Elephant and the Bailey, lay a different
way of doing things. The band’s bass player,
Vinnie Doyle had an enviable entrepreneur-
ial spirit and the ability to impress people.
The music did the rest. With a spirit of Do-It-
Yourself they financed a single, hustled for
gigs in Wexford, Waterford and Kilkenny and
were conscientiously ignored by the Dublin-
centred music media.
However, the self-contained unit from
the South East attracted the attention of
BBC’s Janice Long. She recorded a session
with the band and the London music indus-
try demanded to see the band. Significantly,
where so many other Irish bands had been
forced through economic necessity to move
abroad to forge careers, Cry Before Dawn
stood their ground. They didn’t even go to
London and showcase for the labels. In Wade’s
words:
“We insisted all these people – Chrysalis,
A&M, Virgin, Island, Geffen, Warner-Chappell
you name it – they all had to come to Wexford
to see us and we didn’t have a rehearsal stu-
dio. We rehearsed in an auction room that was
owned by the Mayor of Wexford, Dominic
Kiernan, at the time. And he allowed us to
Recessionary band Cry before Dawn were uniquely
serious in the 1980s, and have survived.
By Michael Mary Murphy
CULTURE musiC
Pic
caption
here
Crying the brutal truth
before dawn
set up our gear there whenever we wanted in
the evenings when the shop was closed. So we
were there, surrounded by second-hand fur-
niture. He also had a to-hire business, so there
were people walking in and out with jackham-
mers and stuff. All these people came down.
And we had one, kind of coloured light, a red
light, shining on the band and we had this
awful PA system. And we just played in front of
these guys and they must have thought: ‘Holy
Jesus what is this mess? What is this we’re lis-
tening to?’”.
CBS-Epic tied the band to a long-term
recording contract, even though the group’s
stance: we are who we are, take it or leave
it, was in dramatic contrast with most of
their contemporaries’. Others seemed des-
perate to please: we will do anything you ask,
please make us famous. Cry Before Dawn’s
lyrics were not fashionable either. They tack-
led basic human themes and seemed closer
to the legacy of strong folk and traditional
music than rock’s canon. Emigration was a
recurring topic: those left behind, the uncer-
tain prospects of those who left. They sang of
deprivation, the meaning and reality of the
symbols we inherit. What other young rock
band sang of “the agonies of the working man”
or launched a single with the salvo: “You bet-
ter start living off the land”? The themes are
not hidden in metaphor, they are stark and
clear and honest. Often brutal. And for com-
mercial popular music on a major label they
are unique in Irish music history.
With hindsight, Wade sees the band’s
words as out of step with the music industry,
yet rooted in his background:
“We were far too serious in some of the
lyrics I think. I don’t know, maybe it’s the
working-class background or something.
Wexford is a big trade unionist town. [Where]
I worked… was a hot-bed of trade unionism, of
working-class guys, tough working-class men,
honest guys. I suppose being from Wexford
you were trying to write about your own sit-
uation. I wouldn’t say it was poverty we were
brought up in, but we didn’t have an awful lot
of money, especially in my family. And I was in
King Street - ironically a very poor area”.
The landscape of Wade’s Wexford town is
inscribed with social and cultural iconography.
The street names bear witness to history and
industry: , Mallin, Parnell, Emmet and
Redmond are on the map as well as Distillery,
Oyster, Fisher’s Row and Commercial Quay.
And everywhere are the holy names. The
Church of the Assumption stands overlooking
the, ironically-named King Street of Wade’s
childhood home. Alongside it, the Adoration
Convent, home to the nuns, the constant vig-
il-keepers of the Blessed Sacrament for over
a century.
Away from the prestige and status of the
holy high ground, King Street was subject
to forces of nature. They are inescapable in
port towns. In November death swept
in. A commercial traveller from Dublin, John
McDonnell, was drowned when his car was
suddenly submerged in six feet of water. The
inquest into his death reported some of his
final words: “I’m done. I’m done. Can nobody
save me?”. And despite heroic
efforts by residents of King Street,
no one could.
Wade still recalls a visit the
family received shortly after the
event: “I remember the Bishop
of Ferns coming around into the
house full of muck and dirt after
the flood and my mother kneel-
ing down and kissing his hand,
the bishop’s ring on his finger, the
bejewelled hand. We were in awe
of the clergy”.
That relationship between the
Church and the people of Ireland
prompted Cry Before Dawn’s fin-
est moment; easily one of the
greatest songs of Irish popular
music. It is a song and a statement,
a combination of music and lyric
that captures and defines a pro-
found moment in cultural history.
A ballad with the spirit and con-
viction of the best of our historical
ballads. That it was written by an
Irish four-piece male rock band
is incredible enough. That it was
released by a major multinational
company as a single is almost as
incredible.
Wade recounts what prompted
him to write it: “I just couldn’t avoid the pub-
licity that was around at the time about Ann
Lovett, a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl from
county Longford. And she died giving birth
beside a grotto. And this was the country of
the Catholic Church – the love between the
people and the Church and the clergy, the rev-
erence. Yet there was nobody there to help
her because it was a child born out of wed-
lock. Somehow, my interpretation is she went
there to be saved but no one could save her.
That really struck a huge chord, it made me
very angry”.
Wade places the song in the context of his
work: “That whole theme was a huge influ-
ence. That was a moment in Irish history
where people said ‘we’re going to come out
and talk about this’. And again it was people
like Christy Moore and Moving Hearts that
gave me the confidence to sing and to write
something like that”.
It is easy to disagree with Wade on this
point. If that really was a ‘moment’ in Irish
history when people began to speak out, it was
not a universal moment. It took the voices of
brave or angry people like Cry Before Dawn to
challenge the hegemony. Naturally the record
label had concerns. Would a word like ‘grotto’
mean anything to the international market?
Would the specifics of the song decrease the
potential number of buyers? The title and
lyric of the song were adjusted from ‘Girl in
the Grotto’ to ‘Girl in the Ghetto’.
Wade remembers the decision: “But of
course CBS…I think there was a worry around
that ‘Girl in the Grotto’; what’s a grotto? I have
to admit I’m ashamed of myself for agreeing
to change the lyric. There was pressure put on
the band because the record company thought
it was a fantastic song but for this word ‘grotto’.
They just thought it might alienate some peo-
ple. We were very naïve and we didn’t stick to
our guns on that one. And I regret that. I think
‘Girl in the Grotto’ is a beautiful song”.
Brendan Wade’s critical self-reflection
and introspection means he judges any of
Cry Before Dawn’s compromises in a harsh
light. The truth is most Irish bands never
made meaningful statements with their music,
so compromise was never a prospect. Cry
Before Dawn have a lot to be proud of. Their
new single recalls the themes of their youth
in Wexford. Wade reflects on the changing
times:
“We had the same decisions to make. We
were lucky that we had jobs. They might not
have been the greatest jobs in the world but
we did have employment. Lots of other peo-
ple had to leave you know. It was the s. It
was a tough time. I think it’s a lot tougher now.
It’s harder on people that have been affected
by this recession because it seems like a total
disaster altogether. But back them of course:
“should I stay, should I go, it’s never left to use
to know”. That’s about ‘will I get on the boat
or will I try and do something here’? We were
very lucky to have the chance to have jobs and
then have a recording contract. My God who
gets that? It’s a dream come true”.
The recently released ‘Is This What You
Waited For?’ brings the band full circle. He
explains: “It’s really saying to all those people
who’ve come through the Celtic Tiger years
and that have worked their arses off, and put
money away and are saying: ‘Is this what we
waited for? Now my son has to go away again,
like I had to do. My daughter is going away
to Australia. Is this what it’s all about? Is this
what I worked all these years for’? And it’s just
happening all over again. So I think maybe
Cry Before Dawn we suit recession times and
sadly that’s the case. I’m not sure”.
Sometimes the hardest times bring out
the best in people. Sometimes they get the
best soundtracks. And Cry Before Dawn still
seem capable of making great music for our
current times.
The title
and lyric
of the Ann
Lovett
song were
adjusted
from ‘Girl
in the
Grotto’ to
‘Girl in the
Ghetto’
“
