Rock the Machine
An interview with Lisa O’Neill
Photography by Keri-Leigh Kearney
From the moment I first heard Lisa O’Neill, I dreamed of sharing her work in the pages of Cordella Magazine.
The breadth of O’Neill’s oeuvre is second only to the reach of her vision. Standing on the shoulders of great bygone and contemporary musicians alike, she belts out reveries, fables, ballads, and laments, plucking and stomping her way towards a deeper kinship with the world. Her voice rises and wavers, expressing compassion for her subjects and for the audience, too. Characters who’ve come upon hard times, be they unemployed dock workers or pining lovers, find a home in her music—hard working and hard living folks coexist as she nudges us towards an understanding of our shared humanity through her masterful storytelling.
O’Neill’s soaring vocalizations and enchanting performances have garnered reverence at home in her native Ireland and internationally. Her recent solo show for Ireland’s National Concert Hall is a stunning example of how profoundly important her work is for this moment in time.
I so enjoyed connecting with Lisa O’Neill for the labor issue of Cordella. We spoke about her childhood in rural County Cavan, her early days on the banjo, storytelling, and music as a conduit for social change.
Cate Clother: What was life like in your hometown and county growing up? Was music woven into your upbringing?
Lisa O’Neill: It's very green and hilly where I grew up. The village is named Ballyhaise in the Parish of Castletara, in Co. Cavan. These hills are known as Drumlins. We didn't own a farm but there were farms all around us. There is a beautiful river that runs through our village called the Annalee river. One of the bands my father was in when he was younger named themselves The Annalees. Music featured in lots of ways since as far back as I can remember. It did in most households in some way I believe. I listened to whatever my parents and brother were listening to until I formed my own curiosities outside the house. I started playing the tin whistle and joined a marching band at the age of seven. We were all in the choir in school, singing, and learning prayers from a young age. I think all this contributes.
I was big into TV ads with catchy jingles, and remember enjoying rhyming my thoughts and bouncing them off my mother and my brother. They both have playful imaginations. Up until I was about seven, I thought my older brother was my only link to all the things I needed to know. His name is John. Even when I was two and John was only four, I thought John was the sharpest, kindest, most fun human anyone could wish to know. I felt so complete and safe when he was near, and him only four! Thing was, his world was my world, and his world was infinite. As I watch him with his daughter today, all this is unfolding in front of me again.
Cate: At the age of 18, you left your home in rural Ireland to pursue your love of music in the city of Dublin. What was this decision like, emotionally, for you?
Lisa: It was exciting to imagine a life in Dublin or anywhere new. I remember crying over my dinner in the kitchen, the day I left home. My mother was standing by the cooker. I remember her telling me to eat up, that I'll be glad of it this evening. It was a Sunday afternoon in September 2000. I was ambitious but fearful of disrupting the links to all I ever knew. Excited and heartbroken at the same time.
I think back now and feel that kind of overbearing spill of emotion which can bring on the tears, which, oftentimes, is a core knowing that something significant is shifting.
Cate: How was it to begin performing in Dublin when you were first starting out? Did your early audiences know the old songs you were singing, or did it feel like you were offering them an education in their culture? What was the hardest part of starting out?
Lisa: I haven't always been singing old songs. I began with my own songs. I wrote my first one when I was eight. Starting out had happened before I knew it. I didn't have any intentions other than to experience the sense of expression that singing gave me. The audience gathered one by one organically. Offers for small gigs came in eventually and what followed was a paid gig. That change was significant.
Cate: You play the banjo in a number of your recordings. The banjo has been included in Irish folk tradition for the past century, but its roots are in the Caribbean and southern United States, first made by African slaves. How did the banjo enter your repertoire?
Lisa: Slavery is linked to my first encounter with playing a banjo. It happened to me in the southern hemisphere, far from the banjo's roots and even further from my own roots. It was in Tasmania where I was invited to write some songs for a documentary called “Death or Liberty,” about the colonization of Australia.
The theatre we recorded our songs in was built by Irish convicts, who were slaves to the British empire. Billy Bragg taught me my first three chords down there on a tenor banjo. I started with “The Croppy Boy” and I then wrote my own song with them same three chords. I called it “The Plough.”
I put the chords in my pocket and flew back up to the northern hemisphere. When home, I rooted out the banjo which was gifted to me five years previous.
Cate: Your voice is gorgeous, raw and affecting. It cuts to the core. How was it to discover your capacity to sing in this way? Where does your conviction/confidence to sing out come from?
Lisa: We are always discovering. We have the capacity to sing differently from day to day, just as we have the capacity to feel or see differently from day to day.
I sing from truth, and isn't it logical to sing out our truths as opposed to whispering or mumbling them? Not to mention how physically rewarding it is to sing out especially when a melody and/or an idea occupies one's heart.
Cate: You seem to have a deep empathetic connection to the experiences of those you sing about. You are an incredible story teller. How does this empathy for the people in these stories arise for you?
Lisa: I think both storytelling and having empathy for people are primal characteristics in humanity generally.
Cate: You’ve described the dynamic between fact and fiction as having a role in your songwriting. Could you tell us more about this, and why it’s important to you? How does the songwriting process work for you?
Lisa: I feel lately, talking about the process can take from the process and restrict it. I don't enjoy trying to answer this question these days.
Cate: Along with traditional Irish folk music, what kinds of creative expression have influenced your work? Other types of music, books, visual art, etc?
Lisa: The rain, the wind, flowers, bees, rivers, trees, birds, the questions children come out with. People like Alan Watts, John Moriarrty, Fred Rogers, Charlie Chaplan, Einstein, Mother Jones, Nina Simone, Moondog, the moon and stardust.
Cate: Your song “Rock the Machine” has been described as a protest song against the mechanization of dock work in Dublin–its power is in its concise and emotive conveyance of unemployment and feelings of worthlessness. What do you think is the most effective form of protest? Can social change come from music, in your opinion?
Lisa: I think that, if one mind can be changed for the better via a song then it is worth writing and even still it is worth writing for the writer’s expression. The human voice when speaking the truth is a powerful form of protest. Silence is also a form of protest. Displaying the truth is the most effective form of protest.
Johnny Cash performed this song in Washington DC in April 1970, after his invite to perform for government heads in the White House. He called it “What is Truth.”
Lisa put this mixtape together for our readers, with a few songs that mean a lot to her. Click below to listen!
Lisa O’Neill
Lisa O’Neill is an Irish singer-songwriter based in Dublin. Hear more of her music at lisaoneill.ie.
Keri-Leigh Kearney
Captured by Keri-Leigh was never meant to be. A stylist on editorial sessions, I was fascinated by the photographers at work. One day I took a notion on a second hand camera and the rest, as they say, is history. Unscripted storytelling will forever be “my thing.” See more of my work at capturedbykeri-leigh.com, and follow along on Instagram.
