"Like my da walking up that hill to the hospital"
The first line of "Where It Should Be", the first track from Pierce Turner's new album, "Terrible Good", and it is, "terrible good", which as far as I am going in terms of a review. I've spent so long listening to the first track that I haven't given the rest of the songs any more than a perfunctory listen. Anyway, back to that line.
"Like my da walking up that hill to the hospital"
Pierce speaks and sings like a proud Wexford Town man, so he always speaks straight to my soul. I also know the "hill to the hospital", having walked it many times myself. I will have to check with Pierce, but I am sure he means the old narrow road to the old hospital, not the wide well-paved main road that leads to the new building.
The first time I heard this line, it brought me back to a birthday, many years ago. I'm not sure if it was my birthday, or one of my siblings. What I do remember is walking up that hill to the hospital, with my own da, on my way to Park Lane to watch a rugby match. I'm not sure I even knew too much about what rugby was - I just remember that it was a long walk. I'm not sure what was so important about this game - our house was a GAA house, through and through, and this was before even my earliest memories of watching the Soccer World Cup in 1986 - I remember seeing South Korea play, and of course Maradona's "Hand of God" goal against England.
There is another line just a little later in the song that deserves some contemplation, given Pierce's ongoing use of the sky as a symbol in his songs - Rocket Man, albeit a cover of the Pearls Before Swine version that predates Elton John's hit of the same name on this album, and one of his most famous compositions, "Sky And The Ground") - but that is for another post, and another day: "Blue sky up above, where it often is. But even further than normally."
