Delicate and delicious, Irish Alt-folk artist The Butterfly Graveyard is located somewhere between The Blue Nile and the deep blue sea. He makes a fragile music, soft as a butterfly’s wing but sometimes rough and uneven like the underbelly of a leaf, translucent when held up under the light.
‘Bethesda Row’ is a little row of houses, on a little street that breaks onto a bigger street in the city where I live. In fact, I walked past Bethesda Row every morning for years on my way to work. I passed the same faces at the same time every single morning and of course, she was there among them. She walked down Bethesda Row, not so much like Monica Bellucci in Malena but more like Audrey Tautou in Amelie. Almost unaware of her beauty, wearing it lightly like a summer dress.
Then of course one morning she was gone, and the next morning and the next. I never saw her again. I often wondered what happened to her and where did she go. A new job, and maybe a new city I presume. There was nothing left to do but write a song about her. Ladies and gentlemen I give you ‘Bethesda Row’.
Lyrically driven, words are important as they spiral among sprinklings of Lanois and suggestions of Eno. Some who listen may hear echoes of other wayfarers who trod this path before such as Nick Cave, Nick Drake, and David Sylvian.
