#theswellseason — Public Fediverse posts

Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová – Once (Music from the Motion Picture) (2007, Ireland/Czech Republic)

I had had another spotlight scheduled for today and originally planned on this one going up early next year when this album turned 20. But, as the incomparable Glen Hansard tragically left us just a few days ago and is being laid to rest today, I thought we’d pay our respects to him now by listening to his music together. And so, our next spotlight is on the soundtrack to the indie film that made many of us (myself included) fans of this amazing performer and kind soul, number 360 on The List, submitted by zm1.

While the Once film was the introduction for many of us to this modern troubadour, it catches the Irish singer-songwriter already a few stops along in a career that had begun a couple decades earlier when he was busking on the streets of Dublin. Around the same time of the filming of the musical adaptation of Roddy Doyle’s book The Commitments in 1990 – of which Glen had the part of the titular band’s guitarist – Glen founded the rock band The Frames, who became a well-beloved mainstay in Dublin’s rock scene. Fast forward a few years, after five Frames studio albums, Glen started a new side project/partnership with young, classically trained Czech musician Markéta Irglová, who he had met a couple years prior via Markéta’s music promoter father during a Frames tour in Czech Republic. The two connected musically at a party held for the band at Markéta’s family home when Markéta sang Frames song “Star, Star” alongside the band impromptu, and so began a shared chapter of their lives.

The duo’s first official work together (and Glen’s first non-Frames work) was for the soundtrack of the Czech film Kráska v nesnázích (“Beauty in Trouble“) (premiered July 2006), which resulted in the recording of their debut s/t folk rock album (released April 2006) under the name The Swell Season.[1] The song they co-wrote that would soon catapult both into the international spotlight, “Falling Slowly”, was on both that Swell Season album and the Beauty in Trouble soundtrack (as was the track “Lies”). Around the same time, Glen and Markéta were approached to be involved in an upcoming Irish indie musical film, Once, with both to compose songs, Glen to provide anecdotes from his busker days, and Markéta to also act (her first acting role). When Cillian Murphy pulled out of the film as the male lead, Hansard was convinced to also act in the film opposite Markéta.

The rest is history, while at the same time all remained connected for the next couple of decades. For one, John Carney, writer and director of Once, was The Frames’ original bass player. Also, one of the two non-original songs on the Once soundtrack is a Frames song – “Say It To Me Now”, from the 1995 Fitzcarraldo[2] – and The Frames’ 2006 The Cost would feature two Swell Season/Once songs (“Falling Slowly” and “When Your Mind’s Made Up”). Following Once and then the release of the second Swell Season album, Strict Joy (2009) – on which the rest of The Frames members played (Colm Mac Con Iomaire, Rob Bochnik, Joe Doyle, and Graham Hopkins) – Glen and Markéta would both mainly focus on their solo careers, again with other Frames members as frequent collaborators of both. And, while Markéta would relocate first to New York and then Iceland, the two remained active both as a duo (with the final Swell Season album, Forward, released just a year ago) and collaborators. The Frames also remained active with their final shows this past February (as part of a mini tour meant to promote and give back to the small grassroots venues in Ireland that were integral in launching their careers, because Glen). To take a close listen to this album, then, is to dive into some 35 years worth of great music, and get a peak into a beautiful community of musicians who have long been tuned into each other.

Many more words could be said about this album, the film,[3] and its star musicians, but have already been said better elsewhere before and in the recent outpouring of tributes following the sad news. I’ll leave it at this though: At the heart of Once is how a shared love of music – and, perhaps more importantly, the love of sharing music – can bring people of all sorts together and help get us through this thing called life. And that is at the core of why music nerds like myself instantly fell in love with the film, its soundtrack, and, particularly, Glen’s resoundingly obvious passion for using humankind’s greatest invention to connect with others. And Glen carried that passion we witnessed in the film and soundtrack in every single performance for the next two decades, literally up to his final hours, singing and playing with others at a traditional Irish music session in a Dublin pub.

Rest well, Glen, and thank you for sharing your music and your life.

Oh, good life of singing
Good life of song
Won’t you grant us our full measure
When our day is done
Oh, good wine and winning
Good nights so long
Won’t you ease us through our toiling
The road is very long

– “Good Life of Song” from Glen Hansard’s This Wild Willing (2019)

• Songlink: Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová – Once (Music from the Motion Picture)
• Discogs: Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová – Once (Music from the Motion Picture)

1. Named after the 1975 novel by Czech-Canadian writer Josef Škvorecký (Prima sezóna). ↩︎
2. Yes, named after Werner Herzog’s film of the same name. ↩︎
3. Not to mention its afterlife as a Broadway musical, adapted for the stage by Irish playwright Enda Walsh (who also did David Bowie’s musical Lazarus). ↩︎