Tom Dunne's Music & Me: Instead of the N17, on the road to God knows where
Tolu Makay has managed to connect different eras with her version of the Saw Doctors' N17.
On the road to God knows where, instead of the N17 They had the wrong road for a start. The N17 should not have been inspiring songs as Ireland entered the 1990s. The road you wanted then was the M50, the road to the future. It only ran from J6 to J11 at the time, but you could see where it was going (around and around). One day, it would enable you to get stuck in traffic on a ring road, like in proper countries.
The N17’s time had passed. It was Italia 90! Ireland was moving out of the ‘exporting its population’ phase and into the ‘taking over British media’ phase. We were about to send them Graham Norton, Dara O’Brien and Father Ted. This emigration was lighter, more fun and, crucially, you could go home.
