Amy sings for the future of the planet
Narraghmore schoolgirl Amy Dillon did just that, in a talent show in her school in Castledermot, writes Brian Byrne, singing in front of an audience for the first time. She says she had only recently realised herself, at 17, that she could sing.
"It gave me such a sense of empowerment," she recalls. "And later, when I started writing my own songs, it became even more so."
Her day job at the moment is working as front of house manager in Crean's Place in Kilcullen, but Amy is firmly on the road to being a full-time singer-songwriter. She has been doing gigs, mostly in Dublin, ever since she gave up a classical music course in college.
"I've played piano since I was 14, and always loved it. I really wanted to be a writer when I was young, of stories and books, any kind of storytelling. When I found I could sing I realised that songs are storytelling. Singing is also such a powerful way of connecting with strangers, and I realised the potential in it.”
Going professional didn’t happen immediately. After finishing school, Amy began a classical music course in Maynooth University. And soon realised that it wasn’t for her. “The lecturers wanted us to copy other composers, and that didn’t appeal to me. I felt I was losing my originality. So I left, and started writing my own songs.”
That was seven years ago. Ever since, Amy has been writing songs ‘pretty well every day’. Which by now has given her a fairly strong playlist of her own material, in addition to the cover songs that are a mandatory part of a gigging singer’s repertoire.
She hopes to release her first EP in the new year. Can she see a development in her songs since she began writing? “Yes,” she laughs. “They’re not as cheesy. A lot less cheesy.”
There’s nothing at all cheesy about her latest composition. Written in a mix of anger and passion during the recent — and continuing — burning of the Amazon rain forest. ‘If the Earth was a Woman’ is a plea to consider what is really the most important thing facing the planet and those for whom it provides a very fragile life space.
“I was watching a video of the fires in the Amazon on my phone. I looked up and saw on the TV a headline about Brexit. I remember feeling so infuriated. I couldn't understand how something so catastrophic was happening, and the biggest concern was Brexit. I also felt so powerless, what could I do as just one individual?”
To 'release what I was feeling’, she wrote a poem. Then she thought, why not make it into a song? “I wanted to make it powerful, something epic.”
The writing coincided with the beginning of a two-week period when Crean’s Place was closed for renovation, and she spent that whole time working on the song. “I felt there was an urgency about it, that it was my way of doing something. I thought if I could produce something to start a different kind of fire, maybe I could spark a revolution in the head of someone who might be in a position to make a difference.”
The poem is powerful. Just 21 short lines. One or two of them might even make it the epic Amy wants. It depends on whether the listener cares. 'If the Earth was a woman, we've stolen her heart, Broken her soul and spirit apart' is one example.
Listen to the YouTube version of the song and you mightn't get all the words the first time around, But you'll get the passion. The hurt. The woman scared for her future. For all our futures. Amy's singing style is dark, smoky, deep. Deep in tone, register, and thought. 'If the Earth was a Woman' will make you want to go and hear her live.
You won't find her on the usual pubs circuit. Her singing isn't about fighting the competition of a noisy bar. "I do more intimate gigs, where I can talk to the audience. I do some cocktail bars. Generally I have to be careful with the audience, so a lot of the gigs are mid-week."
She has an upcoming turn in the well-known Whelans venue in Dublin, and posters for that are to be seen around Kilcullen at the moment. Anyone who goes along will get a mix of Amy's own material along with cover songs from other writers. Those last might not be as familiar as expected — she adapts her adopted songs to her own way.
I'd like to sit in on one of her performances. I'm pretty sure she's still surprising her audiences. Maybe she could play Crean's Place some evening?
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