My Life with Conor Byrne: 'I've penned songs for James Blunt and the Script'

Conor Byrne who has penned songs for high profile artists including James Blunt and the Script

I can still remember the first song I ever wrote.

I was just a kid, but my sister never let me live it down. We had recently moved house and I missed my friends deeply. My lyrics were comical, even though I had poured my heart and soul into writing them.

The piece didn’t exactly cement my
career as a songwriter, but for my family and I, it’s probably one of the more memorable ones.

In those days, I never realised you could make a career out of songwriting. Like many other young musicians where I come from, I began my career busking on the streets of Tralee.

It was a producer in Vienna who spotted my work and asked if I could come over to his studio for a week. The experience gave me my first taste of writing songs for other people. It also kickstarted my career in a way that I could never have imagined.

My first publishing deal came at 21 when I signed with Sony just before the pandemic. Nonetheless, just when everything opened up to me, the world closed down. The signing was anticlimactic. Usually, celebrations like this play out in an office with copious amounts of bubbly. Instead, we were sipping prosecco at a Monday morning zoom event. It wasn’t how I imagined a major deal would go. Fortunately, better days were ahead. Released in 2023, the song I had penned that was picked up by James Blunt was called Can’t Forget You. Ironically, I couldn’t remember writing it.

“Are you sure it’s mine?” I had asked, “because, I don’t remember writing a song called Can’t Forget You.” I was on a trip to Bath with my girlfriend when I got the phone call. My publisher ended up playing the song over the phone to jog my memory. The next time I heard the song was in London pub the Fox and Pheasant, where I celebrated the release with James Blunt and his team. Speaking to James Blunt felt completely natural. He is such a humble person and so willing to laugh at himself that you almost forget you’re in the presence of this big star. He was only able to stay for one pint but it was still an interaction that I’ll never forget.

It was hard to believe at the beginning that he was really singing my song

As an artist, you experience so many false dawns that it’s important not to get your hopes up. So many times I had been told that an artist was taking one of my songs and it hasn’t worked out. It was only when I heard a demo of James Blunt singing the song that it finally started to feel real.

I had written the song about drinking to forget. It was someone else who came up with the idea for the song but it was the easiest thing to write about. There is more to explore in a song about heartbreak. The reality is that it is difficult to write something about a joyful event without it sounding cheesy.

The best thing about writing songs for other people is seeing musicians put their own spin on it and doing something you know you could never have done with it yourself. Often, the singer will give it a life that might not ever have been possible otherwise.

It was great to write for James Blunt, but penning a song called Unsaid for The Script last year was the pinnacle for me. I grew up playing The Man Who Can’t Be Moved on the guitar. Years later and I’m friends with the lead singer Danny O’Donoghue. We were hanging around together the day the song was released. My girlfriend is friends with his now wife. Danny is one of the hardest-working musicians I have ever met. The only problem with having a friend like him is, it can be hard to get together for a pint with him since he is always on tour.

I still enjoy performing my own songs. My family is very supportive. Dad has only ever missed one of my gigs. No matter where I am in the world performing he will be there to cheer me on. I am lucky to have such a great support network. Sometimes I wonder if I actually have fans or it’s just all my friends and family from Tralee coming along to all my gigs. Sometimes I have to remind myself of how far I have come since my humble beginnings busking around Tralee and posting covers on Soundcloud and YouTube back in the day. You move so quickly in this game that I often have to catch myself and tell myself that what I’ve done is pretty mad.

• Conor’s latest single, Flaws, is co-written with the band Picture This.
• This will be the second single from Conor’s debut EP, set to be released in 2026; a collection of songs inspired by the themes of youth, friendship, heartbreak and nostalgia.
• Conor will perform in music venue Whelan’s on Wexford Street in Dublin on Friday, March 27. whelanslive.com