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The Silent Thatch

by Andrew Lawlor

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about

I wrote this song over Christmas/New year 2020/21. The song is about Anderson's Thatch, a magical pub in Carrick on Shannon, Co. Leitrim, Ireland (although the pub is actually across the border in Co. Roscommon!).
I have been playing music in The Thatch regularly for a few years and I got to imagining what the bar was like during 2020. The Covid-19 pandemic had closed all the pubs in Ireland and it occurred to me that The Thatch was without music for the first time in 300 years.
The song tells the story of a mid-summer night when the ghosts of all the musicians who have played in the pub over the centuries, and who have been listening to the nightly music sessions, get tired of waiting for the pub to re-open. On this night, "as the little clock strikes midnight - and a moonbeam lights its face -the ghosts of all the players past -fill the sacred space."
Throughout the night, the spirits of past players emerge and, using the instruments which hang on the walls of the Thatch, play a mighty session until dawn, when they then fade back into the walls, to await the pub's re-opening.

lyrics

The midsummer moon shines
On the Silent Thatch
Inside, all around the bar
The instruments keep watch

There is no sound of laughter
All the conversation’s gone
In all the years of history
It's never closed this long

Now the pipes and flutes are silent
And the melodeon’s notes are gone
They echo o’er the Shannon’s shore
Like the curlew’s lonesome song

No fiddler takes the rosined bow
And leans into the tune
No hand to soft caress the strings
As music fills the room

No more resounds the bodhrán
As it hangs up on the wall
The banjo and the mandolin
Stand watching over all

For decades past the call went out
To players near and far
To bring their instruments and songs and tunes
And play them in the bar

Now the old piano
Stands silent by the wall
All the stools are empty
As the evening shadows fall

As the little clock strikes midnight
And a moonbeam lights its face
The ghosts of all the players past
Fill the sacred space

Now walking through the empty bar
As if floating on the air
Comes a young and handsome man
With a head of golden hair

He slowly takes the fiddle down
And reaches for the bow
Settles down onto a stool
And plays a lonesome note

Now warming to the tune
The music starts to rise
Back and forth he draws the bow
As tears come to his eyes

The plaintive air fills the bar
As he softly sings along
A keening song of mourning
For friends he thought long gone

Then silently in through the door
That’s locked and bolted tight
A little man in an old grey suit
Steps in from the night

He deftly takes the melodeon down
And sits into a chair
And soon the Leitrim Lilter
Is ringing on the air

Throughout the night they all appear
These phantoms of The Thatch
For years they quietly held their place
And kept a silent watch

But then the bar fell silent
And the tunes that fed their souls
Faded into nothingness
So, now they make their own

A little man perched on a stool
Keeps the bodhrán beat
A boy who plays the whistle
Is sitting at his feet

The fiddler has now joined
By two or three or four
The man who strums the old guitar
Is standing by the door

The banjo and the mandolin
Have joined the phantom band
A woman, once from Carrick Town
Has taken spoons in hand

The uilleann piper centre stage
Floating on the air
His drone ensures the key is sure
As a singer takes the floor

She sings a song with all her heart
Of times so long ago
When people gathered round the fire
And music fed their souls

Her voice is strong and clear and true
As she sings her song
When she sings the chorus
The phantoms sing along

Outside the red sash window
The night is quiet and still
No sound disturbs the darkness
Beyond the flowered sill

But a traveller passing on the road
Stops and turns around
Shaken from his contemplation
By a haunted sound

He fancies that he hears a tune
Come through the little door
Floating o’er the Shannon fields
Down to the Corry shore

As he turns towards the daybreak
Rising from the east
He strains to hear the haunting air
As it fades into the mist

As the dawn is rising
And sunlight floods the bar
The phantoms go from whence they came
And fade into the walls

But they say that after midnight
When the bar is quiet and still
If you've got the music in your soul
You can hear them playing still

credits

released March 26, 2021
Words & Music - Andrew Lawlor
Vocals, Guitars, Bodhrán, Spoons - Andrew Lawlor
Fiddle, Whistle - Karina Buckley
Uillean Pipe Drone - George Eggleston
Cover Photo - Molly Fast

Produced by Andrew Lawlor

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Andrew Lawlor WH, Ireland

Singer/Songwriter from Delvin, Co. Westmeath, Ireland.
Writing mostly in a folk tradition with a leaning towards country, with occasional forays into rock.
Recently working on a series of collaborations with the outrageously talented Anna Fisher-Roberts. ... more

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