Christy Moore: "Graffiti Tongue" Columbia, 485089 (35 mins) Dial-a-track code: 1201
It's now nearly 10 years since Philip King described Christy Moore as "the most popular entertainer in the country" and five years since I suggested he might be "the single most important Irish singer/songwriter of our time ... because his best work operates as a blend of poetry and political polemic" which makes him "a true barometer of his age". And, indeed, a man whose emotional power, perceptions, sense of humour, history and of self is peculiarly Irish. I see no reason to revise this opinion. Nor, l suspect, would Philip King feel any great need to revise his point of view.
However, there have been suggestions in certain journalistic circles that Christy Moore has passed his sell-by date. And, perhaps, that all those personal tensions which once made him such a mercilessly accurate barometer of the Irish psyche have given way to a diminished dynamic, if not lethargy. Nonsense. Obviously, there is the far from inconsiderable danger that Irish artists in general - who, for centuries, have defined themselves according to an ideology of struggle - will lose part of that impetus when the real, or perceived, target is taken away. Particularly when that "target" is Britain and Rome, a Foster-and-Allen like double act that has dominated the Irish stage for way too long in relation to far more than just the work of Christy Moore, yet which seems to be loosening its stranglehold of late. But if Christy has, for example, moved beyond the hard-line republicanism that led to albums like Spirit of Freedom. following the 1980-1981 hunger strike, it is patently ludicrous to suggest that his art has been dissipated in any way. His new album clearly proves otherwise.
Not that this means Christy is without his failings. Far from it. Having listened to this self-described, ex-sexist male admit, during his last Irish Times interview, five years ago, how confused he was by the changing roles played by men and women in Irish society, it really is dispiriting to see him reduce this pivotal issue to a one-line joke in God Woman. So Christy has since learned that the previously positively patriarchal God-force should equally be seen as a woman? What else is new? A lot, Christy. And next time you excavate this subject, eh, Don't Forget Your Shovel.
Likewise, pure hearts and good intentions do not a great song make, as is obvious from North and South of the River, which relates to Northern Ireland, in the wake of the since-then tragically abandoned IRA ceasefire, and was written by Christy, Bono and The Edge. Musically the song may sound as resonant as Seamus Heaney's hope-and-history analogy but, lyrically, it is too generalised to say anything other than "wouldn't it be great if we all got along?" Well, yes, but songwriters really do have a responsibility to help in this process, lads, by excavating a little more deeply than this.
And yet, those gripes aside, even a single song, such as Rory Is Gone, more than compensates for any deficiencies on this, Christy Moore's first studio album in five years. As a musical goodbye to Rory Gallagher, it really does breathe like the blues Rory lived and, some would say, died for. Though one could do without the tediously cliched, "And Rory's gone to play the blues in heaven/Above the clouds with all the angels singing, there." What is that? Christian mythology still rules, okay? Maybe. But maybe more a manifestation of the faith in God Christy articulates in the equally beautiful, Strange Ways.
And yet, far more accessible to believers and non-believers alike, is Christy's truly Christian ability to make less-often-remembered "ordinary people" live again, in the soil and soul of politically-focussed songs such as Minds Locked Shut and Riding The High Stool. Even better again, is On The Mainland, where he slips on those old tricolour boxing gloves and quite rightly delivers a sharp right to the face of the "lovely Englishman" who announced on the BBC World Service "that the winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize for literature was a British poet, Seamus Heaney". Nice one, Christy. Likewise, this album. And, as they'd undoubtedly say, in the kind of bar you sing about in Riding The High Stool, eh, duck the begrudgers.
