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(Paul Brady) Inspired by the situation in Dublin in the recession of the early 80s, this was the title track of the first album of my own songs. I was a big fan of Gerry Rafferty’s records, especially ‘City To City’ which included ‘Baker Street’. Produced by Hugh Murphy, it was the kind of sound I was looking for so I asked Hugh to work with me on my record. Happily, he agreed. The version here is from the remix sessions in Startling Studios, Ascot, UK in early 1982. Mixed by Hugh and a young Steve Lipson it is the version on release ever since. While followers of my music will know this song, it hasn’t ever been one of the ‘top ten’. If I was writing these lyrics now I wouldn’t be as deferential!

(Paul Brady) From the lesser known ‘True For You’ album, this is one of my first ever compositions and one I often sang touring solo in the late 70s as I tried to find a new artistic shape. JJ Cale, Ry Cooder and Little Feat were on everybody’s turntable at the time. Some of that rubbed off I guess. The lyrics were kinda prophetic in a way. I was heading into rough seas and had no clear sense of direction... and there was indeed trouble up ahead! Betsy Cook’s organ and Phil Palmer’s slide guitar add a suitable sense of menace.

(Paul Brady) Written in hard times, professionally and personally, as the music biz tightened the screws on life, I took up a form of meditation and gradually began to find an inner calm in the storm. This marriage of the Blues, Irish music and the gorgeous voice of Clannad’s Maire Ní Bhraonáin still makes me feel good. The ‘whooshes’ from Steve Fletcher’s 80s keyboards and Jenny Maidman’s fretless bass lines put this recording firmly in its own era.

(Paul Brady) Another of my very early songs, this started out as a demo... a 6/8 shuffle, almost a blues waltz... and by the time of the ‘Hard Station’ album sessions it had morphed into this mid tempo Caribbean groove. I love playing with the architecture of a piece of music. Lyrically it’s the positive side of the coin that had ‘Trouble Round The Bend’ on the flip side. ‘When we rise up in the morning, Oh, the beauty we’ll find’. Arty McGlynn on rhythm electric guitar, Fran Breen on drums and Tommy Moore on bass. Betsy Cook and myself on keyboards and vocals.

(Traditional arranged Paul Brady / Andy Irvine) From my first solo ‘folk’ album ‘Welcome Here Kind Stranger’, this is still one of my favourites. So simple, me singing and playing guitar live, overdubbing one guitar. Andy Irvine drops in to play harmonica and mandolin. No problem. This is a new mix by Brian Masterson, from a recently discovered multi-track of the original sessions... yes, it seems to keep happening, finding tapes I thought were lost!... Brian also mixed the original album. This is a fresh take on it.

(Paul Brady / Sharon Vaughn) Another version of ‘Paradise Is Here’ perhaps? ‘We’ll be a long time gone’ is an Irish phrase used as an exhortation to enjoy life right now. I’m constantly aware of how short a time we have...in our present shape, at least... and how little the daily struggle we engage in actually affects the outcome of our lives in the long run. Things happen or not... when they’re supposed to so... sail, sail on. Written in Dublin with Sharon Vaughn, this is from the ‘Say What You Feel’ album sessions in Nashville. Kenny Malone on drums, Viktor Krauss bass, Reese Wynans on Hammond organ, Tom Britt electric guitar, John R Burr on Wurlitzer, Scat Springs and Andrea Zonn on background vocals.

(Paul Brady) Ireland in the 80s was in political turmoil, with voices on all sides clamouring for attention. The musical fraternity was riven as singers and song-writers were regularly pressured, even assumed to be mouthpieces, most frequently for the physical force option. I got fed up with the roaring and shouting and after an argument with a politically hyperactive zealot this is what eventually came out. Written in the mid 80s it only appeared at the end of the decade on ‘Trick Or Treat’. Geoff Porcaro, Michael Landau, Freddie Washingtom and David Paitch are the groovemeisters. Gary Katz produced.

(Paul Brady / Ronan Keating) A major change for me stylistically, I’d always loved good mainstream pop but thought it was not for me. The demo I made of this in 98 was hanging around for a couple of years as we tried to find some pop artist to record it. Anytime anyone heard it they said I should put it out myself but I kept feeling it wasn’t me. Eventually I got over my hang up about it, expanded on the demo and put it out on my album ‘Oh What A World’. Ironically this was one of my most successful records, especially in UK. The song also reached No 1 in USA for Brookes & Dunn and was a hit all over Europe for co-writer Ronan Keating. This new 2012 remix shows off Fiachra Trench’s gorgeous string arrangement.

(Paul Brady) One of my very first and still one of my most popular songs, this early version was recorded in London in summer 1980 and released in Ireland to coincide with my first electric band tour that October. It was a hit on radio but I wasn’t totally happy with the feel and when it came to recording the Hard Station album in early 81, I went back to the 79 demo of the song and built on that which became the definitive version. Now I enjoy the raw innocence of this. Mark Isham on flugelhorns, Billy Livesy piano, Peter van Hooke on drums and Mo Foster on bass.

(Paul Brady) The old Irish traditional melody ‘The Verdant Braes Of Screen’ was a favourite of mine in my folk days. It later formed the backdrop to the chorus of this initially tender pop groove with a contemporary romantic complaint. The epic end piece was very 80s and saw the beast coming out. No more Mr Nice Guy... Initially on the album ‘Primitive Dance’, this re-mix comes from the discontinued ‘Songs And Crazy Dreams’ CD.

(Traditional arranged Paul Brady) I first fell in love with the Leadbelly 12-string guitar version in the very early 60s. I remember singing this at college gigs in the Aula Maxima on St Stephen’s Green and in Dublin folk clubs around 1966 before I joined the Johnstons. This raucous romp is from the Keystone demo sessions in late 79. Again like ‘You Win Again’ it’s a rough mix as the final one has gone awol. Arty McGlynn on pedal steel, Paul McAteer drums and Garvan Gallagher bass. Me on acoustic and electric guitars and piano.

(Paul Brady) This song really should have been called ‘Get Back To The Centre’ as that’s the main hook that audiences used to chant when I sang it live. I had a dream that I was hurtling along this narrow mountain road with sheer drops on either side and the only way to get through was to walk the white line in the middle... but it kept disappearing. No prizes for interpreting that one... Still, I got this song out of it. It brings me back to The Mean Fiddler in London’s Harlesden in the mid 80s. For a couple of years leading up to Christmas I did a week of gigs there and this song used to get the joint jumpin’.

(Traditional arranged Paul Brady / Andy Irvine / Donal Lunny) From ‘Welcome Here Kind Stranger’, this is an Ulster song from the first great wave of Irish emigration to the new world in the late 18th century. More an era of expectancy rather than the desperate time of the famine years a half century later as attested to in ‘Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore’, it saw many second sons who weren’t going to inherit the land ending up in Canada or the States leaving sweethearts behind till they returned. Most never did. Andy Irvine plays the hurdy gurdy, Donal Lunny bouzouki.

(Paul Brady / Dillon O’Brian) Written in LA in the early noughties with my singer-songwriter friend Dillon O’Brian in the garden of Bonnie Raitt’s Hollywood hideaway, this song has always been a favourite of mine. Echoes of the 1940s, Brazil, even The Carpenters combine in an acceptance that the world was entering a scary period..and that the best thing to do was smile through it. Recorded In Nashville for the ‘Say What You Feel’ album, John R. Burr’s languid piano and Danny Thompson’s lyrical bass create the perfect mood.

(Paul Brady / Carole King) Is there an artist, a writer, or indeed anyone who creates in any field, who doesn’t at some point feel that the result of their efforts didn’t do justice to the original inspiration? Self-belief is an elusive current of energy and anyone who says its continuing flow isn’t dependent on acknowledgement from the outside world hasn’t faced a blank page in a while. This song deals with the futile pursuit of perfection that bedevils all who try to make things of beauty... and the fight against that feeling of failure when perfection stays out of reach. I first wrote with Carole King in the mid 90s at a songwriters’ gathering in Miles Copeland’s Chateau in France. Then later in Dublin and LA. This was the third or fourth song we wrote and as sometimes happens we didn’t get it finished in one day. I took it to Dublin and finished the lyrics. The underlying message is an apt one to finish a record with. ‘A fair bit done, much more to do!’... Bring it on... but only if it’s fun!