Singer-songwriter performed at a Dublin pub hours before his death
Footage of Glen Hansard singing an apparently unreleased song at his final performance has surfaced. Hansard sang the song at a pub called the Wren’s Nest in the Strawberry Beds section of Dublin hours before he died in a motorcycle crash Wednesday night, according to RTE News.
Accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, the artist, whose milieu was life itself, sings, “Everything that could have been done has been tried and failed.” The moving song, whose morose lyrics describe the end of a relationship, takes on new meaning now in hindsight. “I’ll scream until I’m hoarse/You’ll find your way of course,” he sings. “I’ll try to speak so clear/You’ll only cut your spear/And time is the only thing that’s gonna fix this now.” Another man joins in on guitar by the end of the song, which gets a rousing applause at the end.
The setting was a comfortable one for Hansard, who cut his teeth busking in Dublin’s streets before forming the Frames and the duo Swell Season and well before he won an Oscar for music he wrote for the movie Once.
Since his death, musicians have been paying tribute to Hansard. U2 frontman Bono called Hansard the “voice of the streets” and praised Hansard’s charity efforts, raising money for at-risk Dubliners via the Christmas Eve Busk. “He really was who you thought he was,” Bono said. “He could never walk by a person living rough without checking they were OK… and more than that, he worked very hard so that less people had to live on the streets in the first place.” Others who’ve paid tribute to Hansard include Bruce Springsteen, Nels Cline, and Ed Sheeran.
