Claw My Gut (Ride On - Christy Moore)

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Product:	Ride On - Christy Moore
Date:	19/12/01 (298 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful Album, beautiful singing

Disadvantages: a couple of tracks not up to standard.

Ride On has long been my favourite Christy Moore Album. Since he has released over twenty albums in the last thirty years or so, that's quite an accomplishment. This, his tenth album, was released in 1984, and contains a selection of what has become a pretty standard Christy album combination. The majority of the tracks are traditional Irish folk songs. Throw in a couple more modern Celtic tracks, a folk song or two from another country and a couple of tracks written by Christy himself, and you have the recipe for the usual stunning example of Christy's Celtic offerings.

The album is simple in its musical accompaniments, with the standard bodhran (pronounced bough-ron), bouzouki and guitar, and a sparingly applied synthesizer for any additional effects.

Apart from being a collection of cracking songs (with perhaps one or two arguably duff fillers), the album's content allows Christy to show off his wonderfully versatile singing skills. He sings the tragic ballads with the most gentle of tones, like a storyteller. His singing is not overwrought with emotion - it isn't necessary. The simplicity of the singing brings home the message of the songs - sometimes terribly wistful and sad, like "City of Chicago" -

"In the City of Chicago, as the evening shadows fall, there are people dreaming of the hills of Donegal..."

- And some unbearably gut wrenching, like Jimmy McCarthy's beautiful love song, Ride On -

"When you ride into the night without a trace behind, run your claw along my gut one last time.
I turn to face an empty space where you used to lie
And look for a spark that lights the night through a teardrop in my eye"

This title song touched me deep the first time I heard it. Unlike many favourite songs from years past, I have never tired of listening to it. I have heard many singers and bands perform this song, which I understand is a bit of an Irish "
I Will Survive" when it comes to the old Karaoke. However in the many performances I have enjoyed, not one has contained the depth, honesty and almost painful simplicity of this album recording with its haunting repetitive bass line.

Even with most hard-hitting of songs, Christy holds back and lets the words and music do the damage intended. In "Dying Soldier" he sings the last words of a fallen hero with the utmost conviction -

"I don't want to die here, don't let me die here
Someone come and say a prayer"

- If he had not become one of Ireland's most successful folk singers, Christy Moore should surely have ended up a professional thespian. He tells a story that not even the most highly acclaimed actor could succeed in recounting so simply and convincingly.

Later in the album, Christy shows off his singing-story-telling skills with spirited tales of humorous personalities such as McIlhatton the distiller from County Antrim -
"McIlhatton you blurt we need you, cry a million shaking men
Where are your sacks of barley, will your like be seen again?"

- Here Christy doesn't hold back, and his character and sense of humour shine through his rousing vocals. A similar sense of fun is clear from the namedropping account of the Lisdoonvarna Music Festival in County Clare. It doesn't matter how down in the dumps I may be feeling, but I cannot listen to Lisdoonvarna without a smile creeping over my face, even from the few opening bars -

"How's it goin' everyone from Cork, New York, Dundalk, Gortahork and Glenmaddy!
Here we are in the County Clare, it's a long long way from here to there!"

This is a song that also shows off Christy's own song writing skills. In fact it does so far better than an awful lot of self-penned tracks that somehow manage to make it onto these otherwise splendid albums. The last track, "T
he Least We Could Do" is an example of that. I suppose if I you are a hopeless sentimental who enjoys Meg Ryan films wears a white poppy on November 11th, you may actually like this song, but I'm afraid I find it the weakest track on the album, and certainly a poor choice of finale -

"The least we could do is make the world a better place,
Not just for a few, but all the human race
To end wars and quarrels, make John Lennon's dream come true,
To build a new set of morals,
It's the least that we could do."

Ach I suppose he's got a point, for a' that...

The other weak track for me is Sonny's Dream, an American folk song about Sonny's mammy and daddy, which is best left to American Folk singers really. Christy carries it off, because he has the credibility...but only just!

Apart from the songs I've already mentioned, there are a couple of other highlights. Before I go onto them I will promise myself that I will leave at least three or four tracks for you to discover yourself. I meant to pick out the highlights and ended up including almost everything! The songs I have not included in this review are neither unremarkable nor mediocre. They are hidden little gems that are best left to be discovered afresh.

El Salvador is another song that sits on the line between sentimental and hard-hitting. For me, this song really does cut the mustard, and fits Christy's vocals perfectly. The song begins with a gentle lilting guitar accompaniment. From the beginning to the end of just the first line, the listener goes through a heap of imagery and emotions -

"A girl cries out in the early morning, woken by the sound of a gun
She knows somewhere somebody's dying beneath the rising sun..."

- Again the pure honesty of Christy Moore's voice is what really makes this song. He isn't trying to evoke emotion; he's just telling it li
ke it is.

Finally, The Song of Wandering Aongus. This is a poem by WB Yeats. Neither a well known, nor highly acclaimed poem, but a beautiful one just the same. I studies Yeats for A Level, and so this was a poem I had previously come across, and one that I vividly remembered for its startling magical imagery and fanciful fairy-tale qualities. So when I first heard this album, this was a song that drove me crazy - I was convinced I'd heard it before, and could not think where! The melody itself is neither groundbreaking nor particularly catchy. However it suits the poem absolutely perfectly with a dreamy, almost lazy quality. The slow 3/4 tempo and wandering melody fit the imagery and aid in capturing the imagination of any daydreamer. To my thinking, this would have made the perfect end to an almost perfect album -

"Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands
I will find out where she has gone
And kiss her lips and hold her hand
And walk among long dappled grass
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon
The golden apples of the sun"

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