It’s that time of year when the words of summer hits are intertwined with the memory of sand, and smell of monoï (or damp sweaters, depending on where you summered), and lyrics that will still make lips twitch upwards and drag on hearts or other parts of anatomies when summer 2024 has completely faded.
Many summer hits have had a personal impact, from "Good Vibrations" (Beach Boys), "Summertime" (Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong), "Under the Boardwalk" (The Drifters), the 1989 Lambada, the Brazilian summer hit that I always associate with swinging hips and hammers as the Berlin wall came down, and a new wind of globalisation blew in, to the recent "Watermelon Sugar" (Harry Styles) and Sabrina Carpenter's "Espresso." And, of course, there was Bagatelle’s epic "Summer in Dublin" written by singer-songwriter Liam Reilly in 1980. Reilly passed on New Year’s Day 2021, aged 65.
It's funny how some greats leave us on a significant day of the year, making it easy “to never forget.”
However, a door was left open for someone brave enough to pay Reilly and his mythical song homage. Paddy Sherlock stepped up to the challenge in early 2024 when he launched a crowdfund for his new song "Those Summers in Dublin" about his start in the music world on Dublin’s streets. People chipped in, knowing Paddy had “So many stories to tell."
I’m from the same generation and was curious to see if any of our Dublin memories aligned.
Fans were delighted when the song was released on July 31. The result was a diary of a 20-year-old Dublin musician’s summer, written from the perspective of a sizzling 60-year-old, looking back on his beginnings on Grafton Street, from Paris, which has been his home for 40 years.
His song is an ode to Ireland's musical prowess, with its title and some of the lyrics referencing Bagatelle’s "Summer in Dublin." An opening drum salvo leads straight into strong image creating lyrics “The moons just a half munched cookie, sinking into a chocolate milky sky. And I’m walking around like a rookie, in a town I once told goodbye"… Sherlock revisits his haunts and remembers how one “Walked all the way to Dun Laoghaire because you wanted to sing to the sea.”
The song also references Ireland’s music greats, including the mighty Phil Lynott, along with characters many of us encountered on Grafton Street in the 80s, like “The Dice Man (mime artist Thomas McGinty) barely moving” and Peter Short selling the In Dublin magazine.
Sherlock reminisces: “We were the kids out on Grafton Street, hanging around raising hell. We were singing songs about Rock and Roll, songs I ain’t never forgot.”
The “Radio Dublin 253” jingle and references to “Sally O’Brien and the way she might look at you” and Bishop Casey and the then prohibition on condoms sending out young men “like loaded guns," beam us back to the 80s.
He also remembers, “We thumbed a lift to Lisdoon,” where “Christy [Moore] sang his song,” and in the car, “we all sang along” to Bagatelle’s Summer in Dublin.
The video is well filmed, with terrific shots of Dublin. It is poignant and full of the necessary humour, empowering the poignancy to hit the spot. Sherlock announces, “Once a Dub, always a Dub,” before whipping open his jacket and showing off a T-shirt emblazoned with the Arnotts logo.
In an article entitled "Behind the music - Paddy Sherlock," RTÉ commented Sherlock "doesn’t belong. He’s changed. But as he walks through the city, wandering, a bit like Léopold Bloom, he realises to an overwhelming emotion. He’s still part of Dublin and Dublin is still part of him."
A summer hit is often delicious, and this one is extraordinary in both musicality and lyrics and how it interacts with Liam Reilly’s words, with Sherlock facetiously assuming the character of “The drunk on the bus," providing a super glue between the 1980s, Boomers' heavenly years, and 2024 Paris.
Sherlock, described by Fip Radio, France, as "The authenticity of Tom Waits with the extreme sweetness of Chet Baker," has given us a new, powerful Dublin ballad, and I’m proud to have my name feature on the credits, like all the others who chipped in. The words of the great James Joyce, “When I die, Dublin will be written in my heart," could be applied to Sherlock and many of us who left.
As he rekindles his love for his old city, Sherlock sings: “They say you can always come back, but try as you might you can never get back’. However, in this case, he may well be proven wrong as, although still living in Paris, he is performing more in Dublin these days, and "Those Summers in Dublin" will ensure those dates multiply.
"Those Summers in Dublin" - Single Release: August 2024 - Label: Black Ash Records. You can learn more about Paddy Sherlock on PaddySherlock.com and his Facebook page.
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