Christian Wethered told David Hennessy about his latest single that contemplates themes such as home considering ongoing world issues such as Ukraine and Gaza.
Dublin-based poet and musician Christian Wethered recently released his latest song and live video, Into the Garden.
The song questions our concept of ‘home’, and what it means to belong drawing on the story of Adam and Eve.
However, it also could not ignore more modern considerations such as ‘the increasing number of homeless refugees on the streets of Dublin, the catastrophic conflict in Russia and the Ukraine, and the ongoing genocide in Gaza’.
Following the success of his debut album, Mon Petit Jardin, which was a Hot Press top folk album of 2021 and gained widespread airplay both in Ireland and abroad, Wethered’s sound combines deft lyrics with bare, acoustic guitar picking.
Wethered has been describes as perhaps a cross between Adrian Crowley, David Keenan, Fionn Regan and Joshua Burnside.
His live performances have included appearances at The Ruby Sessions, Electric Picnic, and most recently the Main Stage at Beyond the Pale Festival, where he opened for the likes of John Francis Flynn and Bonobo.
Christian Wethered told The Irish World: “The track came out of the last few months really.
“I was kind of interested in home and what it means to belong.
“I guess I was primarily writing about my own experience.
“I grew up in Sussex and I’ve been in Dublin, on and off, for 20 years so my sense of home has always been not really determined very much by nationality.
“But then obviously what’s happening in the world at the moment- Just everyday, there are people whose home is under threat.
“Then, I guess the world is our home and there’s the ecological stuff.
“And Russia- Ukraine, Gaza, the refugees, the far right stuff as well. All that stuff was kind of secondary.
“I was kind of interested in the idea of home as a garden, a bit like Adam and Eve and then growing up, it sort of necessitates leaving home or at least leaving what we imagined home would always be because we have to break with our fixed norms and notions of stability and meaning and everything.
“I guess adult lives, it’s all about trying to reconfigure what home is and trying to self-individuate and self-determine, living in a world which is continually changing for us.
“It’s kind of a love song.
“They choose to leave the garden but then the angels say, ‘Well, you can’t come back’.
“I guess that’s what happened to Adam and Eve but then Adam and Eve, although they sinned, also became human.
“We’re all kind of fallen, I guess, and sin is a part of life.
“Life is ambivalent and it’s not just a kind of Eden.
“You have to mourn the change, the sort of shattering of these ideas continually in your life.
“I’m not just talking about when you stop being a child but even when you’re in love or you’re in a relationship and sometimes these things break as well.
“I do think that ultimately there’s a sort of a beauty to this kind of fragmentation of fixed norms.
“I think art is the best way for us to express the ambivalence of being a human being with the good and the bad and the mundane and the dramatic.
“I guess it’s sort of primarily about that.
“Then I was like writing it in the context of everything that was happening.
“You’ve got children growing up where there’s a genocide going on.
“It’s not just about now, it’s about their children’s children.
“They’re also going to be affected by this historical conflict and violence which is kind f u, political and then just the sort of continual deferring of home and a sense of safety and security.
“As humans, maybe the world is getting a bit scarier just because we are living in ecologically quite a scary time, there seems to be less security so we’re all trying to figure out what home is.
“Then you’ve got refugees.
“You’ve got the far right.
“You’ve got people who are saying inflammatory things to protect their home or at least what they think home is, and preventing other people from finding solace or security as well.
“I guess it’s just been an overwhelming kind of concern in my head.
The video, by Nestor Romero Clemente, was filmed in Christ Church, Rathgar in Dublin.
“I wanted to record my first song in two years and I wanted to do it in a church.
“It would be interesting because it’s kind of got that biblical thing, but it’s a subversion of the biblical thing.
“I wanted it to be very bare and acoustic and I just wanted to sort of almost like record myself live and make that like a live track, just kind of break it down a little bit or strip it back to the bareness of a folk song where you’re just kind of singing with a guitar, and then the acoustics of the church kind of carrying that.
“It just felt very natural and I was really happy with how it turned out.
“Actually, originally I wasn’t going to release the audio as a single.
“I was just going to do a video but actually, I just kind of liked it.
“Stripping it back to a guitar actually is kind of what I like doing the best, it’s very simple.
“It’s just kind of the essence of what a folk song is.
“I do really like that.
“I’d been listening to bits of Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen but more contemporary, I really like Richard Hawley. I just think he’s phenomenal. His solo stuff is brilliant.
“I quite like that kind of slightly parlando, that talky kind of singing thing.”
You speak about home and those displaced from places like Ukraine and Gaza. I guess I am struck by the contrast of you coming to make your home in Ireland and being, I hope, made very welcome and those who come here under other circumstances and not through choice to encounter ignorance and even far right ideology. I suppose different people come to different Irelands…
“It’s interesting, the kind of notion of home.
“I mean, there’s a literal home and that is a dimension to it.
“I think when I was writing the song, I just kind of thought of home as almost any kind of emotional security or stability.
“It’s a literal place and a place where you can feel welcomed, you can come up against political stuff as well.
“I’ve always really liked it in Ireland.
“I’ve been really fortunate.
“I think home for me is broader than a kind of literal place.
“It’s a kind of a state of mind as well, maybe home isn’t even the right word.
“Maybe stability, safety.”
What made you want to first make your home in Ireland? What attracted you to Dublin, was it the music scene?
“My mum’s Irish.
“I grew up in England so I think I wanted something a bit different from what I was used to.
“It is culturally quite different to England but without being too radically different.
“I’ve lived in France as well and that was really cool but more extreme, there was more of a cultural difference.
“I think it’s interesting because maybe Brexit has exacerbated the differences between England and Ireland.
“The UK has become more isolationist than it was, I think.
“You do feel a little bit of a kind of antagonism just because the UK was a pillar of the EU since its inception, and suddenly it wasn’t.
“Then there’s the whole colonial stuff as well which is very important to Ireland’s history.
“I feel more at home in Ireland than I do in England.
“I’m definitely not someone who ultimately really subscribes to national boundaries at all.
“I feel European. I have an English accent.
“I grew up in Sussex and there are things about England I really like.
“I think it’s difficult living in London as well.
“I just find it really, really big and therefore really difficult to go to things and to kind of maintain networks.
“It’s obviously got so much going for it in terms of its culture but I’m a massive introvert so really just kind of being in a smaller place where I can kind of do my own thing, it is a bit more accessible.
“Yeah, the music scene (in Dublin) is really, really good.
“There’s a huge folk thing happening in Ireland at the moment that’s really exciting.
“You’ve got people like Lankum or John Francis Flynn or Ye Vagabonds, Anna Mieke, Niamh Regan.
“There’s so many and they’re all doing really exciting things.
“It’s just really cool.
“Oisin Leech is another one who’s just kind of appeared, and he’s amazing.
“I guess I want to be where all the exciting music is.
“The folk in Ireland is so exciting.
“Lankum are breaking all the rules.
“I saw them headline their own festival in Kilmainham a couple of months ago and it might have actually been the best gig I’ve ever seen just in terms of what they were doing with their sound.
“It sort of reminded me maybe what it would have been like to have seen The Velvet Underground in the late 60s in The Village where they were just kind of doing this mad thing and everyone was like, ‘Have you seen them?’
“The stuff John ‘Spud’ Murphy has done with Lankum and Ye Vagabonds is just really exciting and really contemporary and then almost celebrating which is kind of what folk should be doing, just celebrating and drawing on its own history and all this knowledge of where it came from and the communities around it.
“Institutions like The Cobblestone are under threat from development in Dublin.
“That’s actually what is really a bit rubbish about Dublin the last kind of 10 years, everything’s turning into a hotel.
“It’s almost like a lot of its heritage is being kind of prostituted for the sake of just people who aren’t really invested.
“Fortunately, there’s so much folk going on and there’s so much kind of music.
“I don’t think you could ever kill that but you do hear of a lot of artists like David Kitt, for example, who was saying that a lot of people are kind of moving outside of Dublin and even outside of Ireland now because the cost of everything is really high.”
Yes, there has been recent unrest in a country that welcomed so many refugees from Ukraine but had a housing crisis long before that.
What is the mood like there? Do you feel that anger?
“It’s definitely rougher.
“I actually got beaten up two months ago by three teenagers.
“I’ve never actually been in a fight before, but they were just kind of frustrated, angry.
“There’s a lot of frustration.
“There was the riots and then obviously there’s a huge housing crisis and that’s kind of combined with a lot of conversation about immigration.
“I also think if you go to O’Connell Street compared to ten years ago, after Covid especially, it’s not doing as well.
“There’s a lot of homelessness. There’s a lot of tents.
“You’re right, the housing issue has been since 2010 or ever since the end of the Celtic Tiger maybe and it just hasn’t been dealt with adequately.”
Sorry to hear about that attack. Were you alright after it? What happened?
“I had just come out of the studio.
“I was in Coolquoy and these kids were kicking a football on a dual carriageway.
“I shouldn’t have said anything but I just said, ‘Guys, maybe don’t do that because of the cars’.
“That’s all it took.
“And then next thing I knew, I was on the ground.
“They hit me and then they carried on but fortunately, people in the pub could see what was happening so they ran away.
“And they didn’t take anything.
“I was fine. I was just kind of shaken up because I guess you just don’t really expect these things to happen.
“There’s a lot of anger, I guess.
“I remember it felt like something was already kind of simmering before they’d even arrived, but if I were to do it again, I just wouldn’t say anything.
“I just thought because they’re like 17, ‘I might as well just say something’.
“But no, you’ve got to be really careful because they could have had a knife.
“You have got to play it really safe.”
You also have ME (Myalgic encephalomyelitis), don’t you? I was reminded of that when you spoke about being attacked..
“Yeah. Before, it used to be really bad.
“Now, I can manage it.
“I have to take breaks from things and I don’t have that much energy generally, but it’s much more manageable than it was.
“There’s a distinction between severe ME and ME.
“I think I probably had severe ME for a year.
“Walking was really hard, doing anything (was really hard) and it affected my mental health as well.
“It was just a pretty grim time in my life because I had a breakup as well.
“As soon as you go below that threshold of capacity, it’s a very lonely place because not only do you not have the energy to see people, but you actually can’t understand why they’re not making time for you.
“You sort of have this weird insight into how everyone is just surviving basically.
“It does take a slightly extraordinary person like a therapist or a very loving partner to really understand what you’re going through.
“I used to take naps. I used to nap five times a day for 20 minutes which was really difficult to manage.
“I was going to the loo sometimes just to have a nap.
“If I was in a public place, I’d have to find a cubicle: All these kind of weird logistics that people don’t really think about.
“But fortunately now, it is a lot better.
“It gets worse with stress but I’ve found a level of capacity that works for me, it definitely took several years.
“There’s a lot of ignorance about ME and CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome), I think one of the big things is, ‘Doesn’t everyone get tired?’
“And it’s true, they do but there’s a difference.
“When some people have a long sleep, they feel replenished, whereas other people wake up exhausted.
“It’s a really difficult thing to explain to people.
“I think it’s like chronic pain.
“You can’t possibly really know what it’s like unless you’ve had it.
“I think I’ve blanked a lot of it out to be honest.”
Before I let you know and with all that we’ve talked about in mind, I was just wondering is Dublin still home for you?
“Yeah, I’m happy in Dublin.
“It is my home at the moment.
“I really like it.
“Obviously, that could change but I do feel a sense of home in Dublin.
“It’s the people and it’s the community.
“Dublin’s obviously got a bit of bad press recently but it is a very friendly place still.
“You can chat to random people, everyone’s got an extra couple of seconds just to stop and have a bit of a chat sometimes which actually makes a real difference on a day to day level.
“I speak to other people who aren’t originally from here and they all agree that there’s a lovely vibe.
“Even just getting off the bus earlier, everyone thanks the driver. It makes a difference.
“I think that’s what I really like about it.”
Into the Garden is out now.
For more information, click here.
