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We still love you without your car Seán Óg |
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By Dearbhla Acheson
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Thursday, 13 May 2010 10:37 |
 TWO weeks ago, Miltown Malbay teenager Seán Óg O’Malley was a fairly average Clare lad, studying for his Leaving Cert and singing with a band in his spare time.
But since May 1, he has jumped to international renown and become a hit – with up to 1,000 hits a day with his debut single I Still Love you Without Your Car on You Tube.
But it is not necessarily the song itself that is actually grabbing all the attention but more so the video that depicts it, which has a number of dogs strumming various traditional Irish instruments to the backdrop of a number of recognisable Galway locations.
These aren’t just any dogs, however, the featured dogs include three of Sharon Shannon’s – Lily, Daisy and Benji, who is blind. The other two dogs are called Louis Walsh, whose owner is Seamus Walsh, the button accordion player from Quilty and Frank Delaney’s dog.
The song and the video are a collaboration between a number of well-known Clare musicians, including Tommy McCarthy and his wife Louise, Inishbofin’s Dessie O’Halloran, Sharon Shannon, Martin O’Malley, Seán Óg’s father and runs Malbay Studios.
I Still Love You Without Your Car features the vocals of Seán Óg, aged 17. He was born into a family of musicians and, by the age of 14, was an accomplished musician and lead singer for the band The Tides.
Seán is currently performing solo gigs across the country and is also in the studio recording additional songs for his debut album. Seán and the team at Hand Management, who have produced the hit, expect the album will be released late this year.
Since its release, the track has been rated among the top 25 Irish music videos on YouTube and in the first 10 days, three people at any one time were watching the recording.
The renowned traditional musicians who play the music for the song aren’t actually seen on the video, except for Sharon Shannon, whose hands ‘puppeteer’ some of the dogs and John O’Halloran (of the All-Ireland Talent Show), who features as a garda in the video.
But while the video is at first impression very funny, there is a serious message, very poignant for young male drivers in particular, in the song and video scenes.
“Basically, the video shows a young lad speeding in his car with his girlfriend. He is stopped by a garda and the next scene shows him coming out from court and the lyrics tell how he has been prosecuted for speeding. His girlfriend, upon hearing this news from him, isn’t too enamoured and basically dumps him. So it’s about removing the glamour out of driving and cars for teenage and young drivers. Sometimes a girl might be into a guy because of the car he drives, or because he’s cool in his car but this shows the stupidity of getting caught up in reckless driving. As another subtle message, we’re also telling young lads that girls will come and go when you’re young but at the end of the day your dog will always be your best friend,” Tommy McCarthy comments.
Tommy is the brains behind the song and is sure that Seán Óg is going to make it big.
“I wanted to help Seán Óg on his way to making a career of singing because I think he is very talented and is the complete package. He has a great voice, which isn’t necessarily shown off to its best on this track but people will hear how good he is when his other songs come out. I’ve been friends with his parents for years and really wanted to get behind Seán Óg,” Tommy adds.
“I knew that if we did something different for Seán Óg’s first release, it would get attention and really give him a headstart in his career and so far the plan seems to be working. I think it’s a really catchy tune too. The chorus really sticks in people’s head and I know people are going around humming it, which is half the battle,” he said.
Tommy is the son of the well-known Clare concertina player, Tommy McCarthy, who died 10 years ago. He lived in Boston for a number of years where he opened up a few Irish bars, including one very popular watering hole called The Burren. He is now living in Galway. Tommy and Sharon Shannon have been friends since they were children.
Tommy is responsible for writing the lyrics and the music of I Still Love you Without Your Car. He penned the lyrics a few months before he came up with the tune, the riff of which came to him the morning after his birthday last January, while he was lying in bed with a sore head.
“I wanted to record the music straight away so I wouldn’t forget it. Louise didn’t have her banjo with her so I contacted Edel Fox, who arranged for us to borrow her brother, Tony’s banjo. So Martin (O’Malley) took us into the studio and we recorded it that day,” he says.
They needed the vroom vroom sound of a car for the recording and Miltown Malbay local ‘Tayto’ O’Brien obliged by allowing his car to be recorded.
Tommy has friends in a production company in the West End of London called Take 5 Studio and they made the video for the track. It was shot on location all around Galway and in Sharon Shannon’s house, where all of the pieces with the dogs were recorded.
“Basically, we are doing this because it’s a lot of fun but as I said there is a very important message behind it and also, most importantly, we’re doing this in a bid to promote Seán Óg. He already has up to 20 songs recorded, including a number of straightforward songs, which really show off his voice. Our aim was to get Seán Óg known so people would be interested in other songs he releases and so far, it all seems to be going really well. We are all really enjoying the hype around it and reading all the comments about it on YouTube,” Tommy comments.argaiv1856 |
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