Galway Rain

Lyrics:

Umbrellas are at full attack, and the rain falls on South Bank,
But it doesn’t feel the same, no it doesn’t feel the same as I remember Galway rain.

London’s become my friend for walks at 4am,
But it doesn’t compare to the Line out to Renmore
Singing “Stand By Me” in harmony, preaching the gospel of Kali.
I’ve become so used to London, I know my way around,
Stuck in the back of my wallet is an old map of the Underground.

Umbrellas are at full attack, and the rain falls on South Bank.

I sometimes go for days without talking to someone,
Except the checkout girl at ASDA or someone on the phone,
I hate the crowds of London, all rushing off somewhere,
Instead of rambling round Galway – eventually you’ll get there.

Umbrellas are at full attack.

In Galway you wait in doorways for the worst of the downpour to pass,
Or walk through the lighter rain spotting tourists in plastic macs,
You can sit outside Tigh Neachtain and watch the city pass you by.

You’re still the one.
I gotta get out of this city.
I wanted you to call.

You’ll always be,
You’ll always be waiting,
my home town
my city.

abbeygate, mainguard, dominic, middle street,
buttermilk lane, sea road, the market, the market.

Umbrellas are at full attack, and the rain falls on South Bank,
But it doesn’t feel the same, no it doesn’t feel the same as I remember Galway rain.

eamon brett 2011

about this song:

The lyrics were written a number of years ago when I lived in the UK and came across it then again a few years later. The scraps of the verses were on one page, and are mostly still the same as what was written back then. The middle section was added while the song was being worked on, and initially just had two voices. The third and fourth (and fifth, if you count the harmony voice in the mix too) were added much closer to the recording day.

I’d been sketching out the song on manuscript paper, so I got all the time signature changes in the right bar numbers. The multi-voice middle section was then filled out on paper and recorded without being demo’d, and I wasn’t fully sure that all the parts would fit together as well as I hoped they would. But one of the newer melodies quickly become one of my favourites on the record, and it turned out that the layers of melodies wove together just how I hoped they would.

The percussion added to it after the piano and voices, was just for additional atmosphere and colour in some places. Aonghus also gave a beautiful cello part to the track that comes in seamlessly and sits in so well into the song.

Song Credits

mister ebby – piano, vocals
aonghus mac amhlaigh – cello
karl hand – drums

Demo version

Here’s a blog post from 2010 about a demo version of this song. At the time it just had two layers of vocals in the middle section, as the extra harmony and other two vocal lines hadn’t been written at that point. This song is one that kept growing over the years, and developing, and then surprised me by changing again when I was recording it in the studio. I did an interview about songwriting before I went into the studio, and I spoke a lot about this song and where each section of the lyrics were written, and how the song has changed over the years before finally taking the form that was recorded. The audio file for that demo is no longer on my Soundcloud account, but I’ll see if I still have that demo and maybe upload it to compare with how the song is now.