Culture That Made Me: Declan O'Rourke picks his touchstones
Declan O'Rourke.
Declan O’Rourke, 49, grew up in Ballyfermot, Dublin and Australia. In 2004, he released his debut album Since Kyabram, a reference to the Australian town he spent part of his childhood.
In 2021, Gill Books published his debut novel He will perform at The Island Drift on Garinish island, Glengarriff, Co Cork, September 5–7. Others appearing at the event include Blindboy and Kevin Barry.
O'Rourke also undertakes a nationwide tour in October.
The album was recorded the year I was born – 1976. My parents listened to it a lot. It's among my earliest memories of music. It’s still on my list of all-time favourite records – the quality of the musicianship and the artistry in it. It’s steeped with tradition and some of it is very uplifting music. The track I remember most from childhood is It's got great momentum to it. Singing about horse races catches a kid’s imagination.
I love the guitarist Paco Peña. When I was maybe 19 or 20 living in Australia, I was given his book, which is 12 pieces of flamenco music. It's a master class. Thirty years later, I still pull it out and have a go with bits of it. It's incredible and has influenced my own guitar playing.
Aged around 19, I discovered Joni Mitchell. Of the artists I listen to, she has it all – the best writing, singing and instrumental capabilities combined. I don't know many other artists who tick the three boxes so completely. The communion of which is an ethereal, beautiful thing. She's a hero of mine.
Jeff Buckley had the most singular voice, a biological gift to have such range. You could only dream of having a voice like that, the raw material of it. Combined with his musicality, it was no accident he managed to harness that incredible instrument. He studied the greats in all disciplines – the great jazz and blues singers. Obviously, he was into rock, grunge and punk, but a recent discovery was that he had something like 400 cassettes of Indian Sufi music. One of them was Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. He was a huge influence on his voice. When you listen to this man you'd see why – he had a voice like an elastic band. It’s boundless. Tragically, they both died the same year.
I love wartime-era music from the 1940s – Cole Porter and Irving Berlin, those guys. They knew how to write songs. They had an incredible, studied way of songwriting, but made it seem so light. Those old songs would begin with 32 bars of music. The big band would come in and do its thing and, in the middle, you have a little song and then probably another 32 bars. It was so measured. There was a song by Irving Berlin called
It's a short song, which begins, “How much do I love you? /I'll tell you no lie /How deep is the ocean? /How high is the sky?” The lyric, when it got to the end of this tiny passage, it met itself like a snake eating its own tail. It was circular. As a lyricist, I get such a kick out of it. You can't tell where he began the idea of the song. It’s so clever.
A book that has stayed with me is Alfred Lansing’s The opening line is: “The order to abandon ship was given at 5pm.” It grips you from the start. It’s such a thrilling, heroic story from that great age of heroism – “the heroic age of exploration,” as they call it. I read every book I could find on it, after that one – about Scott and Amundsen and all the different big expeditions in the Antarctic.
In my mid-twenties, I discovered Alain de Botton’s book I’d had an interest in philosophy since my late teens but didn't know how to find my way into it. It’s a great introduction to philosophy, a deeper dive but still loose enough that it’s almost a coffee table book. It hooked me. It introduced me to seven or eight modern philosophers. It went deeper into Nietzsche, Marcus Aurelius and Seneca – who I’d read bits of their philosophy earlier – and people like Schopenhauer and Montaigne, the French philosopher. It was a mind opener.
is brilliant. A classic movie. It's got a great twist for a start. Something surprises that you don’t see coming. You're stuck in that room, but you never feel like it’s torturous in any way. You're just there, with the jurors waiting for the judgement to happen, as an observer. You forget yourself. It also has great morality to it – the importance of not being judgemental. It has a bit of everything and great acting. It has a nostalgic factor – the fact it’s black and white, too. If it was in colour, you probably wouldn’t enjoy it as much.
is an Inuit film. It's based on an old mythical legend. A great film. I don’t want to spoil it, but there’s a clue in the film’s subtitle. There’s a conflict. The main character’s running capabilities become very important, running across the ice to escape.
I remember being captivated by a film called It’s set in outback Russia, in the Russian Far East, following an old man, an old hermit. Nothing much happens. You inhabit this man's life. What seems banal to a person within their own everyday life can be fascinating to somebody looking from elsewhere. It's a beautiful film.
There was a great documentary I saw on TV called The remains of a man were found somewhere in the midlands. All they found from the corpse was from the neck to the waist. The man was over 7 feet tall, a giant. His body was face down. There was binding through his two arms. It was interpreted he was pinned face down, facing Hades forever, for something he'd done. God knows what he did. His fingerprints were completely intact. It's fascinating these things are still out there, making you wonder what's under the ground. What secrets does a hill hold?
One of my favourite paintings to have seen was a Vermeer, from a Vermeer exhibition in Dublin’s National Gallery a few years ago. I remember walking into the room. The painting was on the far side of the room. My mind instantly perceived it was backlit. There was so much bright light in the painting, a soft, bright light. I was instantly drawn to it. When I went over to the painting, there was nothing – there were no lights. How did he do that? Apart from the beautiful subject matter, the lighting was astonishing. It’s an ability you find through many of his paintings, which is fascinating.
