Ride On : Just another Song In The Backyard Aug. 14, 2007
Christy Moore wrote so much about the Irish experience. He is still alive but with a heart condition. He has loved in excess.
This song, though not quite about what it may seem to be about, I hijack further…
In my imagination it is about Christy , wracked with a heart-complaint, no longer able to perform, responding to a letter from a fan called Sam who is sad he or she will never get to see Christy sing live. Christy for a fleeting dagger-moment begrudges the youth of this other. And begrudges the IRA and the UDA and all the wasted wasted years and youth.
Sam’s letter even hopes they will (in a perfect world) go walking in the Wicklow Hills together.
Imagine Christy on the edge of his yielding bed, looking out through the cross of the frame of the window… Sam meanwhile walking hands in pockets down the concrete streets of an anonymous town full of crap shops wondering if his letter had ever got past the postie – the mere sending it was a fine thing.
Hear him/see them (close your eyes) ...
