Page 33 of Our Song

If we haven’t totally cleared the air – I’m not sure if that will ever be possible now – we’ve at least opened the windows and waved our hands around (figuratively speaking).And it’s just enough to make a difference.When we head back to the studio, I feel a new lightness.

‘What’ll we try first?’says Tadhg.“Midnight Feast’?’

‘If you can ignore the dreadful lyrics,’ I say.‘Do you actually remember them?’

‘Oh, I remember them all right,’ says Tadhg with a grin.

I groan.‘I wish you didn’t.’

‘They were about … What was his name?Darren?No!Dan!That was it!’

I hide my face in my hands.‘Oh God, I can’t believe I ever told you that.’

‘Did he know?’Tadhg is highly amused now.‘Did you ever tell him?’

‘That I wrote a song about him?No, absolutely not!Anyway, it was grand, he never came to any of our gigs so he never heard it.I wrote the lyrics, like, a year after we broke up.’

‘Poor old Dan,’ says Tadhg, though he doesn’t look too sad as he pulls the bass strap over his head.‘This is for you, Dan, wherever you are!’

He starts playing the bassline that opened ‘Midnight Feast’.I start playing the choppy chords.I haven’t played this song for over a decade, but my hands still know exactly what to do.Across from me is Tadhg Hennessy, one of the most famous musicians in the Western world, singing words I wrote about a boy I went out with for a few months seventeen years ago.It’s so surreal I almost start laughing.We mess up the chord changes a few times, and at one stage Tadhg stumbles a bit with the lyrics, but the old ease between me and him is back, and I find myself reminded of those first practices in ColáisteLaoise.How simply fun it all was.How it literally felt likeplaying.How right I felt when I was playing an electric guitar.How can I have let this feeling slip out of my life for so long?

We finish the song with a crashing chord from me, and when we look at each other, I see my own expression of pure happiness reflected back.

‘We’ve still got it!’says Tadhg.

‘Well,’ I say.‘As much as we ever did.’

‘It’s a good song!’Tadhg insists.

I think about it for a second.

‘You know what,’ I say, ‘I think it actually is.’

‘Apart from the lyrics,’ he adds.

‘Well, obviously.’

‘Do you want to play it again?’he says.

I do.So we do.

At one we take a break for lunch, and Tadhg suggests we get sandwiches from a café on the seafront.

‘I can go and get them,’ I say.Surely Tadhg can’t just stroll into local cafés without attracting attention.

‘There’s no need,’ says Tadhg.‘They’ll bike them down to us.’

‘But that place doesn’t do deliveries,’ I point out.

‘Yes they do,’ says Tadhg.‘I order from them pretty much every week.All the cafés around here deliver.’

‘I think,’ I say dryly, ‘they might only deliver toyou.’

‘Ah.’Tadhg looks down at his feet.‘Um, maybe.’

After lunch we run through all of the band’s old songs, replaying the particularly rusty ones until they shine again.I can feel the songs coming to life in our hands.Which shouldn’t be surprising because we wrote most of them together.And while some of them sound a bit generic – predictable chord sequences, melodies that don’t really go anywhere – some of them really are good.Like, surprisingly good.We could do something with them, I think, and then I stop that train of thought before it can go any further.Tadhg doesn’t want to get the old band back together over this fortnight.He just wants to finish one song.My song.And after that, I’ll probably never see him again.

Playing our old songs is, I have to admit, really enjoyable, but after a while I’m aware that something’s missing, and eventually I realise what it is.Which means I also know it’s just missing for me, and not for him.

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