Glen Hansard conjures up some anger
In last Saturday’s Irish Times Magazine Glen Hansard made a few comments about Ireland. What is happening, he said, “breaks his heart”.
It feels to me like Ireland is going through this teenage phase. It always had an old soul but now Dublin is like the teenage niece of London, who is this glamourous and beautiful and flamboyant aunt. Ireland is the teenager wearing too much make-up and high heels and she doesn’t need it because she is so beautiful naturally. The whole nation doesn’t feel comfortable in its skin at the moment.
‘Less is More’ should be the Irish motto these days. [We are] like pigs at the trough, with everyone so obsessed with the prices of houses and cars and what they are worth. It’s like everyone has to show how rich they are because it’s almost like they can’t fucking believe it … it’s like we are taking the piss out of each other at the moment.
It’s always interesting to see just how much the complaints about post-boom Ireland reflect a nostalgia there is about how it used to be. Has Ireland ever felt comfortable in its skin? It was, for a long time, a repressed, backward, poverty-ridden, bleak, violent, cruel backwater. Artists should know this most of all, because other artists wrote and sang about it for long enough. Is vulgarity really too high a price to pay for wealth, which has arrived well at the same time as a social liberty that must be more comfortable to wear than what went before.
He goes on to mention a phenomenon of being “Irished”:
The Frames fill rooms all over the world, you could be in the middle of an intense part of a set, playing in Belgium to 1,000 people and an Irish fella will shout out “go on ya fuckin’ eejit, ya” - we call it being “Irished”. It’s as though people feel a national duty to throw spears at anybody who is getting too much into their own myth or up their own arse. That’s why artistic people have always had to leave Ireland. As an artist you sometimes need to go into the dark and maybe even disappear up your own arse on occassion to get somewhere. The Irish will always try and stop you. They want you to be an everyman instead.
The Frames shows that I remember used to have an in-built self-effacement, in which Hansard would recognise that there was a pomposity to what he was doing, and that a bit of humour was no bad thing. Maybe he’s changed his mind on that, I don’t know. But I do wonder how many artists leave Ireland now for the reason he suggests. We do, as a nation, have a problem with high art. Public art has a terrible record of being vandalised. And he’s right in the “everyman” line. But this is a small country, and that’s a byproduct. And it has, I would argue, helped keep him connected with his audiences for so long.
On which point:
I don’t want to be all ‘poor me’, and I have to say Irish audiences have been incredibly supportive, the only patrons of our music for the past 17 years, but there is this sense of ownership where people feel they can come up and tell you their opinion . . . tell you how to do your job . . . and it can get irritating when someone calls you a prick for no reason.
He’s spent considerable time giving us his opinion of how we’re living, so he shouldn’t be so touchy. But being called a “prick” in the street would be pretty horrible.
But then there was this:
He remembers having a conversation with “a bonafide Irish rock star” about this issue. “His take on it was that the Shamen never mixes with his people, he stays on the outskirts of the village. The way the Shamen works is he operates under a sense of fear and respect. You never see him eat or wash his clothes . . . he has this gravity, there is a respect, but that doesn’t exist in Ireland, in Ireland everyone is a Shamen.”
Yikes.
To Glen
http://www.voidspace.org.uk/gallery/silly/big_cup_of_STFU.jpg
from Santa
Comment by Nat King Coleslaw | December 28, 2007 at 11:15 pmThank God Glen is the exception in Irish music and not the rule. He wonders why he’s called a prick and then he makes comments like that?
Comment by Damien Mulley | December 29, 2007 at 1:54 pmGlen sounds a bit confused, to me. He makes some valid points but then seems a little overcome by his own PR.
Comment by guy ballylara | December 29, 2007 at 4:22 pmI recall a mate who was at the London Fleadh telling of where he or he and the frames walked off stage because the crowd wouldn’t be quiet enough while they played.
Comment by Dan Sullivan | December 30, 2007 at 6:12 pmEnjoy retiring on those 300 ticket sellout Frames gigs in Ballycraphole, Glen… if you can bear to mix it with the hoi polloi, of course.
Comment by Paul McClean | December 31, 2007 at 2:27 pmGlen once asked me to leave a gig. My crime? Discussing a match I had been watching in an adjoining pub with some pals. I hadn’t even realised he was there, emoting for Ireland, in the corner.
Comment by Brock Landers | December 31, 2007 at 4:39 pmHappy New Year.
wahey,glen bashing!(the comments, not the article)..i don’t think people realise quite how popular the frames are abroad, not just in ballycraphole…yes, mr hansard has come out with some utter waffle, as much as he makes sense occasionally too..i think that interview fell somewhere between the two stools..
Comment by ciaran | January 2, 2008 at 9:31 am“It feels to me like Ireland is going through this teenage phase. It always had an old soul but now Dublin is like the teenage niece of London, who is this glamourous and beautiful and flamboyant aunt. Ireland is the teenager wearing too much make-up and high heels and she doesn’t need it because she is so beautiful naturally” - Hansard has rolled this quote out for years with a few variations. If he thinks people confuse him for a cartoon, then surely the same can be said for his opinion of Ireland, Irishness, Irish people etc.
I have nothing against the Frames, or Glen Hansard, but it’s very difficult to see the point in complaining about what people think of you and how people treat you when you spend entire interviews discussing just that. It’s strange. If you are successful in your own right - good band, good movie etc - then why give a fuck what other people think? Just get over it and get on with it.
Comment by UnaRocks | January 2, 2008 at 12:49 pmMaybe Glen should take himself a little MORE seriously and we might start listening to him then. The Frames? Just a band.
Comment by 73man | January 3, 2008 at 5:39 pm“The way the Shamen works is he operates under a sense of fear and respect. You never see him eat or wash his clothes…”
Liam O’Maonlai, then.
Comment by Kid | January 7, 2008 at 2:07 pmI never realised Outspan was such a prick,sorry,I mean tosser.Won’t be watching The Commitments again!
Comment by Jeff | January 10, 2008 at 4:40 pmLook at these comments. Exactly what Glen Hansard is talking about. People ‘pegging him down a notch or two’. Don’t let him get too big for his boots! We can’t have success walking amongst us! It might make us FEEL INFERIOR.
Comment by David | February 20, 2008 at 6:32 pmNever heard of him until I googled his oscar win to see if he was from Ireland. Guess he doesn’t have to prove or defend himself to anyone anymore. Good luck to him.
Comment by Bernadette | February 25, 2008 at 3:58 pmwe all have a habit of rambling on when the opportunity comes. i’m sure all our opinions have some validity but i had the pleasure of supporting glen about 6 years ago. the person i chatted to for a few hours is a very conciderate thoughtful artist. he writes some some great tunes. regardless of where he is from, john lennon was often referred to as having ideas above his station. i’m sure someone from bob dylans home town still holds a grudge and calls him a prick. drop the guard and accept him. hes sound
Comment by terry | February 25, 2008 at 5:08 pmI think he could be right - we’re like a gang of twitchy bulimics overanalysing everything thats said about the country (even the fact that i’m commenting here annoys me!) Honestly though - no other country in the world analyses itself as much as Ireland - we MUST have some sort of inferiority complex - look at the amount of political drool on Youtube from Irish vigilantes, it’s embarrassing. I think we should all just cop on. So Glen is saying something about Ireland, rise above it people and maybe then as a nation we won’t be viewed as so begrudging and teenagery all the time. Even the fact that you are calling a typical Irish town ‘Ballycraphole’ - good way to prove him wrong, like.
Comment by Dee | February 25, 2008 at 5:35 pmThe dude just won an Oscar enough said!!!! He’s got people thinking, no need to begrudge him on what he said. He won an Oscar, unbelievable!!
Comment by Robert | February 25, 2008 at 10:38 pmCouldn’t agree more Robert! Fair play to him! Woo! P.S. Why on earth did RTE cut Markets’s wee speech, grrrr! Anyways enough said.
Comment by Dee | February 26, 2008 at 2:42 pmhave all the begrudgers got a closet full of oscars or what i for 1 am proud of what glen has achieved the music business here is full of begrudgers
Comment by polly | February 27, 2008 at 12:00 pmYou know I’m extremely proud of him and I wept when he accepted the oscar - what an achievement - have been a big frames fan for YEARS and I cannot think of an artist more deserving of an Oscar - the guy is a genius…if you do not own a frames album then go out and buy one or all of them or get swell season - just out of this world! Well done Glen and Marketa - eff the begrudgers!
Comment by Julie | February 27, 2008 at 12:14 pmLove the frames and so proud of glen and marketa. I think people should shut up complaining about him and listen to what he’s saying..it makes sense.
Comment by Crestor | February 29, 2008 at 11:18 pmThat article was a hatchet job. I met glen before a gig years ago and he was sound and down to earth. Anyway he’s made his place in history now, who will remember the begrudgers when theyre gone?!! : )
Comment by John C | March 1, 2008 at 11:17 pmGlen, what a sensible man. I admire you and I think you’re beautiful.
Comment by Fran | March 5, 2008 at 9:37 amI can’t believe the begrudgery of a lot of Irish people, why is this necessary? What did he say that was so bad? I don’t think he offended anyone, and he shouldn’t be called a prick for having a genuine opinion. I wouldn’t blame him if he left here of he’s sick of it. Freedom of speech people, oh and a small thing called respect.
Comment by Niamh | April 5, 2008 at 6:48 pmWhat a magnificent insight into Ireland today. I thing we should be grateful to Glen for telling it as it is! I have studied sociology, and this guy would make a fine university lecturer!
Comment by Ed | May 9, 2008 at 10:36 am