For those wishing to obtain a copy of the album artwork and sleeve notes, you can download a copy here.
The idea to put together this collection came as a result of being asked many times over the years… what are my own favourites out of all that I’ve done? I’ve always found it hard to answer. I’ve gone through so many musical shapes over my 45 year career that I’m never sure which incarnation the question relates to. Sometimes I feel compelled to name those songs or recordings that are the best known, imagining that if I mention one less familiar or from a different genre to where the questioner is coming from.. then there won’t be a lot more to say… or maybe too much to say.
Since I went solo in the late 70’s I’ve released 15 albums, 140 songs or so, most of them new compositions. In the late 90’s I put out a best-of-to-date, ‘Nobody Knows’ featuring 14 of the most popular recordings from the previous two decades. Undoubtedly a lot of those were favourites of mine too.
But like many artists I know, I don’t always feel the most popular songs or the most successful recordings are necessarily the best things I’ve done. Sometimes you write a song you think is really good but when it comes to recording it you just don’t get it quite the way you heard it inside. Sometimes too, you find yourself neglecting songs you absolutely loved when you wrote and recorded them… simply because they never really seemed to connect with the listener at the time… or maybe I just thought they didn’t. It’s complicated and a mystery to me.
In any case, with this record I decided to focus on songs and recordings of mine I’m personally fond of…mostly those that might not have got a lot of attention or been all that well known. Perhaps a b-side of a single or a different mix that was never released…or even a demo. With a couple of exceptions they’re songs that rarely featured on radio. Some recordings have been out of circulation for years. In a couple of cases I’ve remixed a well known song. The only area I’ve left alone is my most recent album ‘Hooba Dooba’ and those recordings already on the best-of ‘Nobody Knows’.
To anyone coming to my music for the first time this will seem an eclectic collection…and then some. I’ve grown up in the rich musical environment of Ireland from the 1950s to the present day…a unique and heady mixture. I feel very lucky to have formed my musical identity before the rigid categorisation introduced by marketing and the media in the 70s. The stylistic diversity of this record bears witness to that fertile ground.
Paul Brady, Dublin January 2012.
In memory of my parents, Seán and Mollie …who danced the Tango…
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002_Dancer in the Fire A Paul Brady Anthology (160 kbs)
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This is intended for those with a lower speed connection, but be aware it is still 126 MB!
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003_Dancer in the Fire A Paul Brady Anthology (320 kbs)
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This is a very large file (compressed at 320kbs) of 234 MB. Only those with a very fast connection should attempt to download it
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01_Hard Station (1981)
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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!
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02_The Hawana Way (2003) single
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(Paul Brady) In the early 2000s I went to Cuba a couple of times. It was in a hotel room in York, UK after a rained out gig that the first trip was planned. The town was flooded, with boats in the streets. I was feeling sorry for myself and called my friend Bonnie Raitt in LA for a chat. She mentioned she was going to Cuba on a special trip and would I be up for joining her? Would I what? I jumped at it. Hanging out with iconic Havana singer-songwriter Carlos Varela, lute player Barbarito Torres from the Buena Vista Social Club and seeing Chu Chu Valdes perform live were highlights in a trip of many highlights. The song came to me while I was there. Why ‘Hawana’ and not Havana? I just thought it sounded better... and I recalled a hit song from my youth called ‘Wimoweh’ which I thought was a cool title...’Hey, Hey, Hawanway’!
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03_Trouble Round The Bend (1983)
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(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.
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04_The Awakening (1987)
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(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.
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05_You Win Again (1979) (B-side)
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(Hank Williams) I always loved Hank Williams but the first version of his classic song that I fell in love with was by Jerry Lee Lewis in the early 60s. Stuck in Rhode Island in 1972 and struggling to put together my own gig after the break up of the Johnstons, I put together a guitar based version. This recording was done later in the decade in Dublin at the same Keystone studio session that produced Crazy Dreams. What you’re hearing is a rough mix from the night before the final mix which has disappeared. Sometimes the rough mix feels better. You’re not trying so hard! Paul McAteer on drums, Garvan Gallagher on bass and myself on guitars and vocals.
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06_The Road To The Promised Land (1980)
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(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.
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07_Paddys Green Shamrock Shore (1978) (2012 remix)
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(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.
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08_The Game Of Love (1987)
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(Paul Brady) On summer holidays my mother and father used go out at night to places where they could dance. Their party piece was the Tango. In north west Ireland in the early 1960s where the two step, the old time waltz, and for the younger ones, the Jive or the Twist were the standard fare, the Tango was indeed an exotic sight. Musicians in the various establishments came to recognise them and would announce the next dance is a Tango... which would of course clear the dance floor except for my parents. They never failed to rise to the occasion. Big tunes like La Paloma and La Golondrina are embedded in me ever since and several of my melodies like ‘Love Goes On’ and ‘Love Hurts’ are like slowed down tangos. This one too. Geoffrey Richardson’s viola and ukelele perfectly underscore Mark Knopfler’s guitar. Máire Ní Bhraonáin’s voice dropped in from Heaven. As long as I play the tin whistle, however, it’ll never stray too far from Ireland.
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09_Sail Sail On (2004)
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(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.
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10_Blue World (1986)
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(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.
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11_Dancer In The Fire (1980) (from vinyl)
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(Paul Brady) This is the song that made me feel I was beginning to get the hang of songwriting. Written on a solo tour of Holland and Belgium in 1978, it started out as a folky acoustic guitar based piece. I was then and still am a huge fan of Steely Dan. Although it sounds nothing like them, Fagen and Becker were in my head when I began to adapt the song to the piano, especially the instrumental section. I first performed it live on an upright with my back to the audience at The Ballisodare Folk festival in 79. Recently I started to play it again at gigs. This mix is from the original vinyl pressing of ‘Hard Station’ in 1981 which has an intimacy not quite there in the CD remix. Betsy Cook plays piano... I was too nervous back then to play it in the studio... and the late great Jimmy Faulkner on electric guitar.
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12_The Long Goodbye (2000) (2012 remix)
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(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.
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13_Crazy Dreams (1980) (original single recording)
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(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.
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14_Steel Claw (1983) (new vocal)
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(Paul Brady) Originally from the ‘True For You’ album, this song, about the underbelly of Dublin in the early 80s, became one of my most successful songs via the 1984 Tina Turner version on ‘Private Dancer’. My voice and spirit were really tired by the end of these album sessions and I never liked the final result. This re-mix features a new vocal recorded in 1999. Phil Palmer’s guitar solo still excites after all these years. Jamie Lane on drums, Dave Quinn on bass. This reminds me of ‘The Meeting Place’, the pub on Dublin’s Dorset St where me and a lot of my contemporaries earned our performance stripes.
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15_Steal Your Heart Away (1987)
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(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.
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16_Duncan And Brady (1979) (B-side)
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(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.
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17_Love Hurts (2000)
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(Paul Brady) I was in Norway in the early 90s guesting on a TV series hosted by singer Lynni Treekrem when this tune came to me. A kind of slow hip-hop Samba which takes a left turn into a dark underworld. It took a few more years for the lyrics to come. From ‘Oh What A World’, I’ve always loved this recording, especially Fiachra Trench’s string arrangement and the few times I’ve sung it live always seemed to work.
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18_Walk The White Line (1984)
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(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’.
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19_I Am A Youth That’s Inclined To Ramble (1978)
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(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.
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20_Deep In Your Heart (1984)
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(Paul Brady) In 1983/84 I spent months touring solo in Europe and UK as opening act firstly for Eric Clapton and then Dire Straits. It was at once both a scary and hugely empowering time. Gradually learning how to win over crowds of up to 25,000 each night, just me and my guitar and my own songs, I never since have felt intimidated by any live experience. By the end of 84 I was ready to record the album ‘Back To The Centre’. Eric came to the Townhouse studio in Shepherd’s Bush one afternoon to add the perfect final touch to ‘Deep In Your Heart’. This is a remix from the early 90s from the compilation ‘Songs And Crazy Dreams’.
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21_Smile (2005)
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(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.
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22_Believe In Me (2000)
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(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!