MINNESOTA
MICK FLANNERY FT. ANAÏS MITCHELL
PROCEEDS GO TOWARDS FAIR FIGHT
OUT NOW!
BABY TALK (WITH SON)
Self-Titled Album // Out Now
Featuring 'Come Find Me' + 'Star to Star'
MICK FLANNERY
A cliché has it that you have to beware of the quiet ones, because most of the time their voices speak sharper and with more range than the loudmouths. Every cliché, however, has a grain of truth in it, and so it’s fair to say that while County Cork singer-songwriter Mick Flannery is outwardly reserved, his songs are fluent in expressing layered aspects of the human condition, its flaws, triumphs, and general uncertainty.
An award-winning, double-platinum selling artist, Mick Flannery is on the brink of releasing not only his self-titled sixth album, but also overseeing the worldwide premiere of the stage musical, Evening Train (so named after his 2007 debut album). He began to write songs as a teenager in his home of Blarney, County Cork. As musical influences from albums by the likes of Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell and Tom Waits seeped into his creative DNA, Mick absorbed, learned and honed the craft that would send him on his way into the world. The path was smoothed somewhat when, at the age of 19, he became the first Irish songwriter to win the Nashville-based International Songwriting Competition. By the time he turned 21, he had signed to a major label and released his debut album.
With his latest release, Mick touches on loose themes of ambition and the search for a meaningful life in the context of a musician’s sometimes feckless and dysfunctional lifestyle. The central character, he reveals, is someone like him, “although this person achieves more notoriety than I have. He is properly famous, and he has to deal with that.” The loose theme is just that, however. “I’m not going to hammer it home. Facets of the theme are on the album, but the storyline itself isn’t an overarching one - each song can stand on its own, and not need to be part of a narrative.”
Songs on the album reference reputation and ego (Wasteland), emotional search and rescue (Come Find Me), socio-cultural intransigence (I’ve Been Right), flawed or unreliable love (How I Miss You, Way Things Go), moral collapse (Light A Fire) and loss of status Star to Star. Whether or not the listener locks onto the themes or topics is irrelevant, says Mick. “There are a few relationship songs on the album that don’t necessarily marry into anything; I see them as a background thing, although with value.”
Threading a line throughout is Mick’s uncanny knack for blending melody with thought-provoking lyrics. Now in his mid-30s, and somewhat reflective of the musician he sings about on his self-titled album, Mick is fully aware of the internal struggles that come with trying to balance ambitions with whatever life throws their way.
“What happens to a person, sometimes, is that they attach self-worth to their career, and once the career fails then self-worth also plummets. The more weight you put into this persona you’re trying to be, you set yourself up for a bigger fall. It’s the danger of having big ambitions that are based on the external rather the internal.”
Mick Flannery has, of course, experienced and processed enough in the past fifteen years to know what his views are. He smiles when he says that for the sake of the songs he ever so slightly embroiders certain facts for creative effect.
“Obviously, I don’t equate to the levels of conflict I’m describing in the songs. I know the spectrum because of how reserved I am, and how - in my years of being in the music industry, and through varying levels of being noticed – it can change your life a bit. You’re not anonymous in certain places, and when that modifies your behaviour things can happen to you that are unknown to the general public. It’s a strange thing, a balancing act. Most of the time, however, I can go out for a quiet night and not be recognised. I wouldn't want to give up that freedom.”
Such freedom is hard earned and comes at a price, yet Mick wouldn't dream of giving up songwriting. Why would he when, he says, it’s getting easier.
“I mess around with all sorts of ways to write a song – silly songs, impromptu songs, joke songs that I co-write with a buddy of mine in America. We have about 200 of them by this point. I’m a little bit addicted to it, I think; it is certainly my favourite thing, and I’d like to keep doing it. I put a lot of hours into the craft, and it would be a shame to change tack. I like the merging of lyrics and melodies. I have a passion and a facility for it, which I know I’m lucky to have.”
This self-titled release is Mick’s sixth album – that is a sizeable back catalogue, a genuine body of work. For live shows, he says, it’s comforting.
“I remember feeling at the beginning of my performing career that I didn't have an armoury of material. If a gig wasn't going well, I knew there was no cavalry of songs coming over the hill to rescue it. Different songs call in different moods, and at the start all I had was a handful.”
He has six times that now, with decades ahead for many more, whatever his age. Mick has long since disregarded the view that anyone over the age of 30 has little to write about. “The outside perception is that the people who buy music are young, that the music they buy is what gets played on the radio. There’s such a wealth of experience in older people, however, that’s as valid as anything a young songwriter brings.”
As a mature songwriter, he reasons, he’s trying to hold on to what is essential to him, and resigning himself to the fact that the naïve, passionate 20-something ‘Mick Flannery’ is gone. What comes next, he contends, is much more interesting and experienced. “You have a larger worldview and are more learned, each of which combine to create something new.”
At the core of it all is a precise and skilled art form, of which the album is a fine, individualistic example from a songwriter who still aims to knock the competition out of the frame.
“When I mess about with songs, with choruses,” explains Mick, “I try to write the best ones. It’s like a kid kicking around a football on the street – he wants to be Lionel Messi, not a player in a lower division. It’s hard to kill off that level of ambition – I just want to be good at the craft.”
Beware of the quiet ones? You have been duly advised.
IN THE GAME - COMING SEPTEMBER 2021
In a first for Mick Flannery, he and Irish newcomer, songwriter, and multi- instrumentalist Susan O’Neill have come together on a collaboration album ‘In the Game’.
Mick Flannery is one of Ireland’s most acclaimed songwriters and singers. The award-winning, double-platinum selling artist has released six studio albums, three of which reaching No. 1 status. His last offering in 2019 received high praise as his finest to date: ‘Mick Flannery has a voice for the ages, a complete Master of his craft’ cited Clash Magazine, whilst The Sunday Times said he “conjures up exquisite story-telling’. ‘In the Game’ the new collaboration album out later in 2021 does not break this spell, as Flannery continues to deliver stories never heard before. This time with a story-telling partner, by way of the unparalleled voice of Susan O’Neill.
Having wowed huge festival stages over the past few years, moonlighting with Irish dance band ‘King King Company’ and accompanying the queen of traditional music Sharon Shannon on her international tours. Susan has now spent the last while honing her own craft. Susan O’Neill is a songwriter of hidden depths, a singer with a voice that is equal parts balm and blowtorch. She is audacity personified, a free spirit. A real performer. As of now Ireland’s best kept-secret.
On the release of ‘In the Game’ this however is all about to change. ‘In the Game’ is a themed collection of songs about a couple’s coming together and falling apart. “Susan and I settled on the idea that the two people would be in a relationship with each other, although they may not still be together,” explains Mick. “The songs touch on their associated issues, their ups and downs, beginnings and ends, and what’s happening in both of their lives aside from the relationship.”
“The concept is the dark and the light of the nature of relationships,” says Susan. “The joys of love, the depth of despair in love, the wild abandon of love, and then nostalgia for times past that they know they will never have again yet should be dearly cherished. For me, the album is that sinewave and shape of love.” Mick and Susan initially met in 2018, when she was the support act at a few of Mick’s Irish shows. The first time they had a proper conversation, recalls Mick, was around the time of their first co-write in late 2019. “I had shown the song ‘Baby Talk’ to Susan, but I had gotten quite close to finishing it, so I thought I’d do that on my own. I had the melody for it but then decided to write it as a duet.
That’s a good tool to help you finish a song, as having two voices is a very specific structure. It’s like an enjoyable little crossword puzzle you have to figure out -they need to be saying something to each other, so there has to be some conflict in there.”
‘Baby Talk’ went on to win ‘Best Original Song of The Year’ at the 2020 prestigious RTÉ Radio 1 Awards, racking up nearly 1 million streams to date, the pair’s live performances on both The Late Late Show and Other Voices ‘Courage’ series (to a near 10 million people) were heralded as highlight performances of 2020. This would be the start of the pair crafting this 13 song duet album.
The album was written and recorded over the summer of 2020 during lockdown between Cork, Ireland, and Los Angeles. Produced ‘virtually’ by LA based, Australian producer Tony Buchen (Courtney Barnett, Smashing Pumpkins, Tim Finn), and featuring musicians from both Ireland and America.
The songs on ‘In the Game’ tell a sorry, salutary story: the likes of Are We Free? (‘Tell me when you’re ready to be never satisfied’), These Are the Days (‘It was better to learn a hard lesson and go, than to never try and never know’), Baby Talk (‘If real is in the feeling, baby, no one is a fake’), and the title track (‘Oh darling, what would have happened if only we’d had a good run’) offer up longing and redemption. The album as an entity seeps equal measures of seduction and sorrow, desire and despair, while the songs are delivered simplistically yet potently.
“If something should be said then it should be said simply and honestly,” says Susan. “Co-writing with Mick has helped me not to be afraid of owning the truth and honesty of what is being said. Songwriters can sometimes be too outwardly tough, so it’s good to expose vulnerabilities with one line or a few words.”
“I was surprised by how intuitive an experience it was,” says Mick of such an unbeatable collaborative work. “There was a lot of unspoken stuff going on. With Susan, every time she sings something, you can hear the consideration from her – she knows what sentiments need to be delivered and in what way.”
‘In the Game’ is a journey familiar to most. The highs and lows of the game of love, that raw space that the human condition can leave one most vulnerable. This record is as nostalgic as it is a fresh wound, it’s so familiar yet a stranger. 13 songs in a timeless capsule, the songs on ‘In the Game’ will resonate for a long time after.
Music
Featured
Photos
Click for hi-res versions.
Video
