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THE SATURDAY INTERVIEW:DANIEL O’DONNELL

Whatever Happened To Old Fashioned Love?was originally a swooning ballad penned by BJ Thomas, back when the Co Donegal man was cutting his debut single. But in Daniel’s interpretation, there was not a hint of a question in his delivery, rather a sweet and resigned fatalism in his voice that made it clear that OFL, in so far as it ever existed, had vanished for good. The kids weren’t listening but, like so many of O’Donnell’s songs, the record proved a hardy bird anyhow. It peaked at number 21 on the UK charts, miraculous in a year when Ace of Bass provided the prevailing sound on the airwaves and in nightclubs. Through the steady flow of resilient and heart-tugging minor classics of yesteryear that O’Donnell has been crooning for a quarter of a century, there is something about that 1993 cover which seems central to his everlasting popularity. This was the year when the Dáil passed an act to decriminalise homosexuality, when the Charlton soccer revolution was about to have its last great shout and when the star of Kurt Kobain was burning furiously.