BEATS OF LOVE 

108. Father Stephen Doyle

MY LOCAL parish priest deserves my warmest well wishes and thanks as he sadly retires his post from ill-health. Despite the bad apples and the church's systemic failure to toss them out, the mass-majority of priests still do a great service for their community. 

I first fell under Father Stephen's spell when he regaled his congregation with a warm sermon about his calling. He was young, like myself when his father died, and the dark episode convinced him to walk into the light towards the priesthood. I had some instant respect for him because of this strength of faith. All I could do was fumble around in the darkness. 

His candour and wit always temper a stiff-necked conservatism. I was privy to a lighter side of this character whilst being instructed for our wedding, when he regularly had us both in teary fits of laughter. And a deep pragmaticism discussing our tribulations with the home office when I found strength through his guidance. When the health service was reluctant to assist. Later, whilst the missus was converting to the faith and in regular consultation with him, she always came home smiling despite being given a massiv, great big book to read. And that is the important thing. Despite his staunch conservatism, he still spreads joy. 

He even injected his dry wit into my mother's funeral prep when I was skirting around the houses, refusing to tell him that in all truth she was probably agnostic. His eyebrows raised playfully when he thought the word liberal was a bit of an understatement for her. Then the look of sheer relief when I told him she'd had the last rites. He loves music and sat disapprovingly as I was culling hymns from the folk mass for our wedding that I used to enjoy back in the early eighties. Unsurprisingly, during the pandemic and without his musicians, the church was full of Gregorian chanting. It was brill and so utterly Father Stephen. 

I will even miss his high mass with incense peppering my eyes. His theological sermons that always either come with a cautionary warning or a bit of stand-up. And his long, unfashionable Eucharistic prayers. I will miss them because, probably, they won't come back. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

107. Thousands Are Sailing by The Pogues

WHEN MY OU studies coincided with my cancer diagnosis, a dividing line emerged. A before and after. A sort of epiphany. 

Up until that point I would've described myself as a Roman Catholic, left of the left politically, but definitely English. A point emphasized when I chose to watch Frank Sidebottom rather than The Pogues at Reading in 1989. My Irish and Welsh ancestry, although known to me, seemed so completely distant. My openness to study has consequently brought the distant past to life. Especially my own. 

My grandmother and her Irish mother and my aunt (taken into the home after her mother died) all lived with my grandfather. A Heyside local whose family all lived nearby. During the depression they all had to make the walk from Shaw to Chadderton for their state handouts. Two of her brothers died. Two of seventy-six million who perished in those two wars. Yet, retaining dignity, and containing sorrow, she remained a pivotal part of the church community.

Despite being highly intelligent, my grandmother was thrown into the mill at the age of fifteen. It partly explains why her children were so keen to iron out their Irish and Welsh ancestry and progress up the social ladder. Selflessly, she was driving them on. Remaining the beating heart in my mother's life, she missed her son dearly when he relocated. When she had a big win she gave half back to the church and split the remaining half amongst her two children. Keeping nothing for herself. I can only imagine what a great example had been set for her. Even in death, kicking against the hospital bed posts with the pain of kidney failure, she was defying the odds.

This mighty song, sung with such marvel and warm grit and kinship with Philip Chevron's quasi-poetic lyrics, sings to me through this truly remarkable woman. The daughter of what we casually call refugees. 

 BEATS OF LOVE 

106. Danger Dub by Panda Bear / Sonic Boom

I DEFINITELY regret that my dark moods and warped notions of authenticity necessitated a need to be out of it in much of my free time. It detracted attention away from my passion for loving the art of music. 

There are so many records that whirl around my musical vortex that are just lacking that little something to make them truly special. I can diagnose the problem but can offer no such remedy. Fortunately, in this instance, we have Adrian Sherwood at the controls, and he can and does.   

I have struggled with Animal Collective records since the mighty Sung Tongs LP. It cradled those harmonies, evocative of Brian Wilson's more troubled times, with an experimentation that sounded truly exciting. When they toured the follow-up, Feels, the harmonies began to grate. I was even resistant to the Panda Bear collaboration with Sonic Boom Reset for the same reason. Its conceptual nature and their symbiotic relationship on an equal footing definitely promised a lot, but it wound up being a little too straight-jacketed by its own idea of perfection. It was upsetting coz Danger is laden with brilliant hooky moments and really updated those 1950s samples but sounds a little artificial and saccharine.

Thankfully, Sherwood reinterprets the project and, whilst retaining the vocals, he isn't afraid to chop them up and create something looser, less straight-jacketed by concept and, on this track, especially up-beat. I'm in skank heaven coz those brilliant hooky moments are captured, but thankfully, with less coherence and fresher sounding instrumentation. It repudiates the notion that a new psychedelia has to sound futuristic. It simply doesn't, it just needs to be creatively exciting. 

I also regret that such optimistic vibrancy wasn't around decades ago. Perhaps my moods wouldn't have been so dark.