Songs of the Week: Take 6

Neil Morton

FEATURED SONG OF THE WEEK

Some Stroke Of Luck: Niamh Bury

Of all the gin joints that serve good wine You happened to walk into mine The night is young, the moon is fine And I haven’t stopped to check the time

Dublin folk singer Niamh Bury ranks her latest single, Some Stroke Of Luck, as perhaps the finest song she has written. We would hate to contradict her, and it is our Song of the Week at herecomesthesong.com, but she should not underplay the quality of the bewitching Budapest from her acclaimed 2024 debut album Yellow Roses.

Bury cannot resist borrowing her favourite Humphrey Bogart line from Casablanca for Some Stroke Of Luck, though she tweaks it to state her preference for wine over gin. One cannot help thinking these romantic lines might be the perfect soundtrack to a slow wedding waltz.

Her love song proposes a toast to serendipity. ‘It’s about chance encounters where stars align, the axis shifts, and suddenly you’re put on the path that was meant for you,’ she says. ‘I’m very grateful for the people in my life, and I often think about how different my life would be if we had never met.’

We love the Irish lilt in her tender yet strong delivery and the lazy, jazz-tinged entrance that ushers in Núria Graham’s piano, Caimin Gilmore’s double bass and Matt Evans on drums alongside Bury’s acoustic guitar.

September streets, a little song

Drop the two-pound coin that you’ve held for too long

And by some stroke of luck here we are…

And that one time you’re dressed refined

She crosses the dancefloor to straighten your tie

And by some stroke of luck here we are

A big old bang, big cloud of dust

We go where we will, we do what we must

And by some stroke of luck here we are

And the rest is Bury’s Bogie-inspired, heartwarming chorus. Some Stroke Of Luck is the most recent single from her forthcoming second album, for which she travelled to upstate New York to work with producer Philip Weinrobe whose client list has included Adrianne Lenker, Billie Marten, Buck Meek, Ye Vagabonds and Cass McCombs. The other appetisers were Everything Is Moving and I Haven’t Gone. The release date is early next year.

Raised in the coastal town of Portmarnock north of Dublin, Bury was immersed in music, her mother a classically trained pianist, her brother a guitarist, her sister an opera singer, and her father ‘an amazing guitarist and singer, a great showman and storyteller’. Follow that. She has, impressively.

Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Paul Simon, Neil Young and Van Morrison were obvious influences but her brother introduced her to Fiona Apple and Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst, who ‘blew my mind and made me want to write’. She told House Of Soho magazine: ‘The way Fiona Apple uses internal rhyme and rhythm really inspired me as a kid. Similarly, the metaphors and associations in Oberst’s songwriting are so wild and clever – it kind of makes you laugh and cry at the same time. I suppose I’m always trying to achieve that in some way – there has to be a balance of joy and pathos, whether it’s coming from the music or the lyrics.’

That combination is at the heart of Budapest, not a cover of the George Ezra hit but an exquisitely sung ballad that includes a verse about the moon that lingers long in the senses. On the album it enjoys the bonus of a coda that blends jazz and classical elements, featuring piano, double bass and cello, just when you thought the song had been ‘packaged and posted, ready to be delivered’.

The above video of a live performance at Dublin’s CoisCéim Dance Theatre does not include the coda but boasts a beautifully textured intro. Ryan Hargadon was still on piano and Graham Heaney on bass but cellist Aongus MacAmhlaigh stood in for Kate Ellis from the album on which harpist Alannah Thornburgh also played. Bury had returned to the capital from studying in Norfolk to join a vibrant, collaborative music scene. We relish the benefits.

She says of Budapest: ‘It’s about chasing that feeling of being a small part of a big world. Like when you look up at the night sky and feel so tiny, but somehow very connected to the cosmos. Or when you’re alone in a big city and no one knows your name. I think there’s a great freedom in that – in forgetting yourself and your own story and getting lost in something bigger.’

And I just wish they’d leave the moon alone, you know

’Cos when our kids are sleeping,

Where are they supposed to go?

And for lovers in different cities

A billboard just won’t be as pretty

I wish they could learn to leave

Good enough alone

And you’ll go to Budapest

Rent somewhere for a while

Maybe learn the language

Or get by on a smile

Lose yourself within that crowd

Drink from a different font

They say: Don’t make yourself so small

Sometimes that’s what you want

A passion for language, reinforced by her masters in English literature, informs those poetic lyrics. ‘To me, language is magic – I’m fascinated by the way a murky emotion or thought can be transformed into something crystal clear just by finding the right combination of words to describe it. Then I’ll usually pick up the guitar, and the lyrics and melody will often grow simultaneously.’

Yellow Roses, co-produced by Brían Mac Gloinn of Ye Vagabonds, was a high bar but we suspect the sequel will establish a new mark. The gorgeous Discovery and Pianos In The Snow, based on tales about her mum before Niamh was born, bore echoes of Laura Marling but one soon realised that comparisons were futile. Such is Bury’s singular voice.

The title track was an homage to her grandmother’s strength in the face of adversity, and in Beehive she explored mythology and science, inspired by a passage in a book she read about an Amazon tribe likening the human mind to a beehive. ‘One man’s rainbow is another’s/ Spirit from a different world/ One man’s soul is an oyster pearl.’

For a singer-songwriter this lyrically gifted, no stroke of luck will be required.

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