Under cover

When he wrote 'Galileo' the Dublin singer-songwriter Declan O'Rourke had no idea it had the potential to be one of the best-selling records written by an Irish solo artist, writes BRIAN BOYD

IF YOU were to get out your calculator and spend hours poring over international pop charts, you couldn’t help but conclude that the most successful Irish songwriter of this year will be a quietly spoken 34-year-old from Ballyfermot who releases his own material.

Seven years ago Declan O'Rourke brought out his debut album, Since Kayabram, which, although it sold well in Ireland, made no inroads internationally. But one of the songs on that album has since become a bit of a phenomenon.

Paul Weller described O'Rourke's Galileoas the only song from the past 20 years that he wished he had written. Before Weller's endorsement the song was covered by the folk singer Eddi Reader (formerly of Fairground Attraction) on her 2009 album and later that year by Jacqui Dankworth (daughter of the jazz greats Cleo Laine and John Dankworth).

But it was an out-of-the-blue phone call last year that has since turned Galileointo a multimillion-seller for O'Rourke. The call was to inform him that the US artist Josh Groban had fallen in love with the song and was to put it on his current album, Illuminations(which has sold about two million copies since its release, in November 2010, and should easily double that amount by the end of this year).

Just as O'Rourke was processing this fact he heard that Susan Boyle, whose debut album sold 10 million copies, came close to covering Galileoon her new CD, but there was consolation of sorts in the news that the X-Factorcontestant Mary Byrne had covered the song on her recently released album.

Add up all the sales of the original version of the song plus all the subsequent cover versions and Galileocould be one of the best-selling records ever written by an Irish solo artist.

"When I originally recorded the song I distinctly remember thinking to myself, Nobody is going to be interested in this, so I only finished it for my own self-amusement. It was an indulgence," says O'Rourke. "I know every song you finish you think is really special; all I knew about Galileowas it was something I really liked, but I didn't think people would get it.

“In fact the only reason I finished it was because I thought my family would like it – and really that’s as far as it went.”

Tangentially, Galileois about his parent's marriage. "There's no real huge personal story there, but I think sometimes a song is a kind of collage of your own experiences, as well as being good old-fashioned escapism," he says. "It's a love song only in that it expresses how tough love can be sometimes but how it's always worth it in the end. That would be the main sentiment going through it. The key line in it would be, 'Love can make you ask some funny questions now and then.' "

O’Rourke knew early on that the song struck a chord. “Before the album came out I was doing an outside broadcast for the Tom Dunne show on Today FM. I played it for the first time, and Tom thought it was brilliant and told me that people were ringing in all the time asking for it to be played again. I think he ended up playing it every night on his show.”

About two years later, while preparing to release his second album, O'Rourke found himself briefly on the same label as Weller. The former Jam frontman had been given a copy of Since Kayabramand was beguiled by Galileo.

It was in an interview with Uncutmagazine that he was asked what song from the past two decades he wished he had written; O'Rourke's original version of Galileowas included on a Weller tribute CD that came with the magazine.

It was also the beginning of a friendship. “Weller got me over to support him on his UK tour, and my first thought was, But Paul Weller is a rocker: why does he like my music?” says O’Rourke. “But I got to know him well, and he has been a total gentleman to me. Touring with someone of that status was an absolutely wonderful experience, and then, to top it all off, when he came over to play the Olympia last November he got me up on stage with him to do a duet on the song. My parents were in the audience, so that was a very special night for me.

“By the way, I’ve noticed in one of his most recent interviews he’s changed the ‘only song I wish I had written from the last 20 years’ to ‘last 25 years’, so I’m hoping in his next interview it’ll be up to the last 30 years!”

THE JOSH GROBAN connection came about through another Irish songwriter, Brendan Graham, whose song You Lift Me Up(for which Graham wrote the lyrics) Groban covered a few years ago. "Brendan was really good, because he had a song in the mix for Josh's new album but also alerted him to my song," says O'Rourke. "Obviously, Josh had never heard of me, but I heard he really fell for the song. That's no guarantee, though, that the song will make the final cut. I just thought, Well, there's a slight chance here, and sort of forgot about it, but Brendan kept his eye on Josh's website, waiting for the official announcement of the new album's track listing to be made. When it went up Brendan rang me and told me. . .

“I remember taking the phone call when I was in the car and, as thrilled as I was – and still am – there was a real feeling of sadness also. I knew how Josh sold in the millions all around the world, so in a way it was me saying goodbye to my little song. It’s like a child growing up and moving away: you’ll hope they do really well, but you’ll still really miss them.”

The Groban cover is the biggest exposure so far for Galileo, and for O'Rourke the reward is not just the royalty cheques that will enable him to continue recording albums and touring but also the amount of music-industry attention that it steers his way.

“I’ve toured the US a few times before and really believe I’m slowly getting my foot in the door there, but this sort of exposure really helps,” he says. “You don’t want to be really cheesy about it and put ‘Josh Groban covered my song’ on the posters in the US, but word does get around in the industry, so it can only be a help – a very big help for a musician who has to fund his own tours.”

BUT THE BIG question remains: whose version does he prefer?

“The first thing I think whenever I hear someone else doing the song is, I just hope they do it well enough, so it reflects well on me,” he says. “I think we’re on the fifth released cover version of it now, and what I like is that none of the versions sound like mine, but none of the artists have changed it so much you don’t recognise it. So I’m really happy with all of them, which I know doesn’t answer your question.”

The Mary Byrne version is a bit special for O’Rourke, as both of them are from Ballyfermot. “Having coming so close to Susan Boyle covering it, I was really happy Mary put it on her album,” he says. “I thought she’d get all Shirley Bassey on it, and belt it out, but she’s delivered a great soft vocal.”

Is it too vulgar to ask how much Galileohas made for him? "The funny thing here is I was doing a bunch of press for my new album [the excellent Mag Pai Zai], and while everyone was asking me about the new album there was always that, 'So are you a millionaire yet from Galileo?' thrown in at the end, and that tended to be the focus of the published articles. I'm not going to give you the poor mouth – the song has done very well for me – but, no, I'm not a millionaire, and I wish people would stop asking me that! The money comes in slowly over a number of years, and all of it will go into funding future albums. I'm not on a label at the moment, so I have to fund everything myself."

Declan O'Rourke's Mag Pai Zaihas just been released. He is touring Ireland over the next two months

Bog standards The Irish songs that were too good not to cover

For our money the best cover version of Galileois the one by Eddi Reader; you can find it under "Rainbows (Galileo)" on YouTube.

As for other covers, you have to go all the way back to the 18th century to uncover the prodigious output of the Irish lyricist Thom Moore, whose Minstrel Boyand The Last Rose of Summerhave been covered by artists as diverse as John McCormack, Paul Robeson, Buffalo Springfield, The Pogues, The Corrs, and Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros.

Until the emergence of Lennon and McCartney, the Omagh songwriter Jimmy Kennedy was the most successful British or Irish composer in the US. Kennedy wrote Red Sails In The Sunset, among other hits, and his work has been covered by Gracie Fields, Vera Lynn, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Elvis Presley, Nat King Cole, Fats Domino and The Beatles.

The Limerick singer-songwriter Mick Hanly wrote Past the Point of Rescue, which reached number two in the US charts when it was covered by Hal Ketchum, in 1981.

Paul Brady has had his songs covered by Santana, Dave Edmunds and Tina Turner.

There have been numerous covers of Van Morrison's work, most notably Moondance, but none has had a huge commercial impact. The same applies to Thin Lizzy — with the exception of The Smashing Pumpkins' version of Dancing in the Moonlight.

The most widely covered U2 song is One, with versions by Johnny Cash, Jarvis Cocker, Mary J Blige and the cast of Glee, but the band's biggest cover-version success came with the Pet Shop Boys version of Where the Streets Have No Name.

Next month Kate Bush's Flower of the Mountainwill have lyrics credited to James Joyce, with Bush singing Molly Bloom's soliloquy from Ulysses.