Where are ye now, O beautiful girls of the mountain, Oreads all ?
Nothing at all stirs here save the drip of the fountain; Answers our call
          -      "Nymphs"
                         Katharine Tynan

​

It was so fucking hot outside the first time I heard you.

I was laying on my belly on the bench on our front porch, praying the humidity would drop just
enough so it wouldn't feel like walking thru a melting candle in an unwashed jelly jar outside,
when the DJ asked if we remembered just a few summers ago, when this was a hit.

I didn't, but within the first few notes I was gone.

A haunting, gentle breeze of strings, and your voice of honeyed sorrow, and you'd shown me
what a fool I'd been to only know Ireland from Irish Spring commercials and that time I heard
Bono ramble about Dublin in a U2 live set my older cousin was playing while we played
Gunstar Heroes.

Your mournful beauty took me to the rainy countryside, the water running along in a melancholy
splendor, the air rich with scents of anise & bog rosemary, the high longing & desperation that
permeated so many rich parcels of art that your homeland sent out for the world to admire -

 

 

& then the song ended & then I nervously went to my mom to ask if she'd buy me a CD of a
song I just heard on the radio. I didn't know the name, so I sheepishly sang the chorus while
staring at the ground.

"Oh! The Cranberries. Yeah, I like that song too; it's really pretty. Sure, I'll get it for you. That's
your allowance for the week, though."

Fair trade.

I fucking loved that album. Still do.

Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?

​

It's an absolute pleasure & I remember playing that song so many times, it wore that part of the
disc down to where it would start skipping whenever my little boombox got to that track.

That magic -
That allure-
That honey it put in my heart -

I wanted it to linger.