songs of home, I

picture: mine

Belfast, home.

I think everyone in the world has mixed feelings about their hometown, and never more so when you're from Belfast.

I love Belfast - now. Growing up, there wasn't a lot about it to love. I grew up in post-Good Friday Agreement Northern Ireland, in a country trying to move forward from the muck and the dirt and the ashes, struggling against those who wished to drag it straight back again. I grew up in a place where I was blessed enough to be born after the worst of the violence and in a small town only just far enough from the city that most days I only saw the stories on the news, but lived in the frustration of the clean-up and still seeing a great amount of fear. If we take off our rose-tinted spectacles, we can see that it was still pretty scary even when it wasn't a warzone, and there was a lot about it to hate.

Fast-forward to now and it's hard to recognise the place. I read an article which described it as an "up-and-coming cosmopolitan city" and nearly spat out my C&C orange, but I have to admit that these days that quote may actually be on the mark. It's still not perfect, but Belfast, she becomes more vibrant every day. Tourists are flooding in, the streets are clean and no one lives in fear of the next bomb anymore. Bars, theatres and hotels are opening every second and I swear the place is even beginning to look a bit sunnier (although it still rains every 5 days out of 7. That never changes.).

Northern Ireland is a beautiful country with a lot to love, and a lot to look forward to. The scenery is stunning, the craic is mighty and the people are the friendliest in the world, even if our accent is a bit stinkin'. God has moved in incredible ways here, and seeing hearts and communities slowly but surely being healed over the years is enough to make you weep with joy.

And man, do we have a lot of music to be proud of.

Showcasing that is a new film, Good Vibrations. I'll write my thoughts on that sometime - it was honestly, truly wonderful. It may be the best film to come out of Northern Ireland.

These days, we have so many Northern Irish artists to be proud of. Two of the fellas currently in Snow Patrol, Iain Archer who used to be in Snow Patrol and now flies solo, Lee Mitchell, Foy Vance and Two Door Cinema Club all come from my own small wee hometown - and that's one little town from a whole country. On the wider scale, we have legends such as Gary Moore, Van Morrison, Ruby Murray, Brian Houston, Duke Special - and Ash, who everyone knows at least a chorus of. We even have some amazing worship artists - Keith & Kristyn Getty, Stuart Townend, Robin Mark, Rend Collective Experiment...

And, in case you didn't know, the first live performance of 'Stairway to Heaven' was in Belfast. If that doesn't make it honourarily Norn Irish I don't know what does.

So I'm going to run a series of (probably sporadic) short little posts with some wonderful songs by Northern Irish artists. They're wonderful and deserve to be shared.

We begin with a well-known piece of Belfast punk, which Good Vibrations showcased.

My 'da' was a punk. To me, this always meant that there are a lot of hilarious photographs from the late seventies. But as the film pointed out, punk meant a lot more in the Belfast of the Troubles. It was a place to belong, the only subculture that wasn't tainted by the all-encompassing political climate. It was a place where it didn't matter if you were Catholic or Protestant - 'just that you were a punk'. It was a place for frustrated young people to declare that they wanted more out of life. A place to live outside of bombs and shootings and violence.

Joe Strummer went on to say this about it:

“When punk rock ruled over Ulster, nobody ever had more excitement and fun. Between the bombings and shootings, the religious hatred and the settling of old scores, punk gave everybody a chance to live for one glorious burning moment.”

I don't know enough about punk to give any insight, and I'm probably too young to be able to write about many of these bands but I am going to play one of the catchiest tunes ever, and it's Belfast punk.

Alright, if you're going to be fussy about it, Derry/Londonderry (whatever you're into) punk, but it was produced in Belfast so I'm claiming it. We all know it, we all sing along, air drum the opening beat and even sometimes headbang when we're in the mood. John Peel declared it 'the most wonderful thing [he'd] ever head."

So here it is, simply legenDerry (I'm sorry, I know, I should be able to resist. But I can't. Blame the 2013 City of Culture gambit): Teenage Kicks, by the Undertones.