Cri du coeur

Because of some friends started singing a Damien Rice song called The Rat Within the Grain and made the song stuck in my head like a cancer, I spontaneously typed his name on Google and found a long, but rather nice interview of him because honestly he's just one of those very arty-farty musicians who hardly ever speak for a proper interview. I was in junior high when I first heard of his song The Blower's Daughter, his repetitive and haunting, cold and bittersweet ballad, on the radio playing again and again. I didn't know what's the thing with the song, because it wasn't easy-listening, not catchy or anything but it just stuck in my head somehow. A couple of years later, I remember it crystal clear that I found his first record O in an HMV store in a suburban mall, on the back of Harrow on The Hill tube station in London, and I bought it along with a P.S. I Love You soundtrack because they cost only 8 pounds for two (O might be cheap because the record had been a few years old at the time, but the soundtrack? maybe because it was too cheesy for the Britons. I don't know, but it was also really good.) I didn't think that it would be one of my all-time favorite record, all I knew was, "This is the guy whose melancholic song magically stuck in my head all the way through junior high." And yet, as it turns out, it was the best 4 pounds I have ever spent in my life so far! (My favorite track of his, Accidental Babies and Desafinado, are not featured in the record, though) Little did I know that The Blower's Daughter was also featured as a soundtrack to Closer, one of the bitterest, coldest, rawest movie I've ever seen. The song and the movie matched perfectly, I can say, both are so raw and bitter and cold that watching it makes me shiver all the time and all throughout the movie. You can read the interview here and find what a sweet guy he really is. Here's a hint before you read:

The last ten years has seen the Kildare singer-songwriter selling truckloads of albums, repeatedly touring the globe, hearing his songs soundtrack hit movies, being romantically linked with an A-list Hollywood actress, and performed with the likes of Christy Moore and Leonard Cohen ("a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, gracious, eloquent man"). You'd think that Rice must be spoilt for choice of momentous moments. But he doesn't hesitate before answering: "meeting Lisa Hannigan".

The lowest point?

He smiles, wistfully: "Lisa Hannigan not wanting to talk to me anymore"

"I would give away all of the music success", he says, "all the songs, and the whole experience to still have Lisa in my life. Like that!", he tells me, snapping his fingers. "No question."