Tracks Of My Years: Paddy Casey

The Vinyl Countdown

aving gotten his first guitar at the age of 12, it was clear long before that fateful day that young Dubliner Paddy Casey had soul.

As he explains below, even at the age of six, music could make him cry. Which, you know, is what music is supposed to do.

Make you feel love and loss. Deep down in your soul.

Honing his craft by busking for the following 12 years, it was one night at Dublin’s International Bar that the 24-year-old Paddy Casey’s life changed forever. An A&R man from Sony was there, and he liked what he heard. A quick 2-day demo at Sun Studios in Dublin so impressed the label that they released the nine tracks recorded just as they were.

And the rest, as they say, is history. With a little hysteria thrown in.

Now with five albums to his credit – including the just-released The Secret Life Of – Casey has established himself as one of Ireland’s more interesting singer/songwriters.

As he prepares to return to Greystones on Friday 27th, we asked Paddy to let us know his desert island discs – those songs that can still make him break down and cry…

Van Morrison Astral Weeks
I started hearing this album when I was about 12, and I’d never heard anything like it. Every song seemed to just flow outside of time in some kind of magical, mystical alternative universe…

Stravinsky Firebird Suite
It’s more the ending of this, when I can only imagine is the firebirds rising from the ashes…

Mary Margaret O’Hara Miss America
This is an old album from the 1980s. She was never very famous. Some of the songs kill me every time. So sad and beautiful. It’s country, but not as we know it, Captain.

The Waterboys This Is The Sea
This was a big album for me when I started busking. I had never heard them but other people were busking their songs and I practically knew how to play all the songs from the album years before I heard it. Mike Scott is a great poet, and he has such a raw emotion in his vocals…

New Order Substance
I think this was the second time I cried when I heard an album. I was about 10, maybe, and my brother bought it and stuck it on while I was asleep. And I woke up crying, thinking it was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever heard. I’m not sure what the exact song was…
The first time I cried was Supertramp’s The Logical Song, when I was about 6 or 7, having a bath.

Luke Kelly Legend
For me, Luke has always been the voice of Ireland, but he sang songs about and relevant to people everywhere.

Bob Marley Rastaman Vibration
Ya have to have a bit of Bob, especially if you’re on an island…

Prince Lovesexy
This is one of the first albums I bought, and I still think it’s one of his best, from start to finish.

Prince Around The World In A Day
This is the Prince album from when he decided he was quitting and going off to find the Ladder. This was his Sgt Pepper’s…

Stevie Wonder Fulfillingness First Finale
Stevie Wonder is probably the most musical man to ever walk the planet. He’s probably the closest thing to a modern-day Mozart. Not sure why this one is a favourite of mine…

Paddy Casey plays The Whale on Friday, August 27th. Sold out, of course.