Julie O’Sullivan’s song ‘Mother’ wouldn’t sound out of place in a 1960s Disney movie.
Her gentle guitar guiding the listener through old childhood recollections; while her words act like the fleeting thoughts and experiences of a child.
‘I love you mother yes I do/I will always look up to you/and how you put up with his hand/I can’t accept you to love this man’.
Words that are dark in any circumstance, the fact we’re hearing the viewpoint of a child makes it all the more bruising.
Yet, all scattered and innocent, Julie follows up with a more humorous twist.
‘Can you buy this toy for me/Promise this time I’ll be mature at least two weeks before I’m bored’.
All before anchoring her message into place through the refrain, ‘Mother, can you hear me cause I’m crying out to you’.
A far cry from her run as frontwoman of alt-rock band Dead Network, and more bare than her stint as one half of the folk duo Sushee; ‘Mother’ is Juile’s most stripped, raw and honest performance yet.
– Stephen Cool
Check out more music from Cork artists on the Troubadour Distillery website here
