No friends of mine
Joe McManus Joe McManus

No friends of mine

Ok you do you. But me? I know certain things. When there's no moon or a new moon my music is at its most precise.

When it's a full moon my music has the most heart or spirit. Every gig I do on a full moon is so easy. Full of lush and sensuousness.

And every gig on a new moon is very precise, feels cool and snappy.

The police and the staff in Casualty Departments and staff in Psychiatric Departments and Prison staff will all tell you that a full moon drives their customers up the fucking walls.

People just go off.

The human body is 60% water and you've seen what effect the moon has on the tides. We get lifted. Suspended.

Also when there's no moon we go flat.

Get left loose in our own juices. As far as I'm concerned it's as true and unaffected we get in a month.

So you is what you is during a no moon day and you're aided and abetted during a full moon.

Also it varies as it swings between the two.

I dislike a half moon. Don't trust it. Don't know where I stand. Half moons are no friend of mine.

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f
Joe McManus Joe McManus

f

When I was a young fella there were about ten L.P. records in my parents collection.

I played a certain few of them mostly.

Simon And Garfunkel's Greatest Hits. The Clancy Brothers. Elvis. The Dubliners.

I had to climb up on the kitchen table to get to them. The player was on a shelf.

Take the record out of the sleeve. Place it on the turntable. Press play.

Listen carefully. Be affected. Be taken away into a place of harmony and joy.

That collection, to me was a tiny yet perfect gene pool of human music.

It wasn't all the music. But it was heaps of music. HEAPS.

The T.V. had one single channel. For the record. RTE 1.

Then later we got BBC 1 and 2 , ITV, and UTV.

Just a limited finite amount of stuff to be going on with.

No mobile phones! None. One phone in the shop only. 6409 was our number. No computers.

Just people and stories people told about each other.

Point being if you wanted to hear music, which was a very special treat , you had to buy an album or a single, choose it carefully because it's your hard earned money , and take it home and by that stage you would be ready to savour every single note on it.

Also when I started gigging first there would be one T.V. in the pub. I'd set up and say "I'm ready to start thanks".

T.V. off. No mobile phones. Nothing. Just song and audience and singer. And fucking rakes of beer and cigarettes, which were good for you back then, and let's go into the ether together and come out cleansed somehow.

I paid Spotify $12.50 this month for access to almost every single note made by any human anywhere ever.

How can anyone value music anymore?

It's cheap.

But the live musician?

She has it still.

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The Children Of lir
Joe McManus Joe McManus

The Children Of lir

Sure who knows?

You head off into a relationship with somebody based on attraction. You fancy them. Sounds simple but there are a million things that your mind, body and soul want when your looking for a partner.

I was just saying yesterday how I find it startlingly all the words and books a therapy and shouting and screaming a human couple can do but swans mate for life and never say one word to each other.

Just suss each other out one day and go yep. You'll be the one. My opposite enegy , my lover my partner, my darling. Or starling.

Humans need their opposite energy. I play music in pubs and I have a thousand years of people watching behind me. I love watching the couples. Sometimes they're as simple as swans.

Few beers and a Snitty on a Satd'y night down the local. And that'll do. Kids, jobs, weddings funerals and bang! I can't believe Bev went before I did.

Sometimes life gives you love and you can't believe it! The absolute perfection of it. Never could end. But life doesn't allow it to flower. So deeply deeply sad.

Or you get years and years but it gets beached and it's stuck and that's that. Let's try to be civil and make life as gentle as humanly possible.

Once maybe though. Once. In a short life. You meet someone, you're easy in yourselves, and you shake your tail feathers and head out on the lake.

Majestic swans. No need for words. Just harmony and gentle ballet with an ooccasional wing flap. one short life.

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The instruction manual
Joe McManus Joe McManus

The instruction manual

I remember five minutes ago I was sitting in the old Norman Castle at the back of our house in Roscommon. Me and the lads had just finished playing football, the evening was getting dark and the bats were fluttering about catching dinner.

I was a child. Living was relatively easy but I had worries like most kids.

Adults knew everything. And we listened to them. They were top shelf professionals at life and we knew absolutely nothing. Teachers, Priests, Nuns, Police, and Parents.

Oh they had it down. They knew. I did not.

The belief of a child in adults. The absolute unquestioned trust. The power adults have over kids.

And now I know the truth. Looking back now at adults around me at that time maybe 10% had a slight bit of a clue about the real stuff of life.

A tiny and generous percentage.

Most were lost in clouds of confusion, distraction, frustration and pain but they looked like they might have a clue. Some were downright damaging, cruel, and abusive.

No clue. No real idea. No grip on the substance of life. Just victims of poor information, beliefs and guidance.

I'm a big adult now so I must know everything. Simply must. I left it around here somewhere.

No I get lost all the time. I need support. I need wiser people to hold me in my damage and let me heal.

This machine, the human body mind and soul.

It's not a simple thing to run. It takes time and focus to even understand the instructions never mind the actual running procedures.

Right now my life is in the biggest time of death/ rebirth it's ever experienced.

Sitting quietly or sometimes curled up in the foetal position crying on a rug.

Letting the flack evaporate off. Reaching out for land. Melting back to a purer state. Letting the energy of the thundering universe realign every atom and molecule in my cloud.

Hey kid, I know nothing right now. May have half a clue in a few months. Chat then eh?

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