COLD SWEAT by THIN LIZZY. Letter by Lauren O’Hagan.
I want you to know that meeting you on 26 March 2006 was one of the highlights of my teenage years.
IN A LITTLE WHILE by U2. Story by Tess Macrae.
Returning to Melbourne always felt like a slow deflation, but I had Paddy and our photos and stories and reminiscences to keep me going through the school term. I longed for open skies and mountains, physical work and companionship, stars and weather and cold.
HERE COMES THE NIGHT BY VAN MORRISON & THEM. Story by John McDonald.
References to places in Belfast also appear in the lyrics, Hyndford St, Cypress Avenue. Locations around Northern Ireland, Newtownards, Comber, Coney Island. Van was nailing it for me. I knew the places he was weaving into his lyrics. Belfast was becoming famous through his songs.
JACKIE by SINEAD O’CONNOR. Story by Rijn Collins.
But I remember watching Sinéad on stage. I remember trying to absorb some of her strength, to physically inhale it across the crowd. That’s how you construct identity, surely?
LONELY MILE by RORY GALLAGHER. Story by Lauren O’Hagan.
I knew that the only way to achieve full closure on this difficult chapter of my life was to go to London and retrace Rory’s own steps by walking his Lonely Mile. It would be a strange form of pilgrimage for me.
THIS IS by ASLAN. Story by Maria Haughey
Once Upon A Time there was a band. A band that was Made In Dublin. And there was a girl. Who wasn’t Made In Dublin. But was formed there. In a way. In the 1980s and the 1990s. In the parts of Ballymun that passed themselves off as Glasnevin.
SOUTHBOUND by THIN LIZZY. Story by Lauren O’Hagan.
At that time, I didn’t own a record player of my own, so we stopped at my grandparents’ house to pick up my dad’s old one from the attic: a Ferguson 3057. We carted it home and my dad installed it in my bedroom.
AT THE DEPOT by RORY GALLAGHER. Story by Paul Dufficy.
I write down everything I know: albums, early bands, band members, famous gigs, instruments played and anything else I could remember. You couldn’t record with a Walkman but I had kept my small cassette player/recorder and now made sure I had new batteries and a clean C90 cassette.