The Dunnes Stores Girl

You could be forgiven for thinking it's John Spillane season here at 9mmfilm.com, because, well basically - it is.

I've already posted this week about two of John Spillane's three albums - I posted about his first album 'The Wells of the World', and I posted about his latest album 'Hey Dreamer'.

If you read my post about Hey Dreamer, than you know that 'The Dunnes Stores Girl' is a song from that album... well I went to a great John Spillane gig in De Barras in Clonakilty tonight and at the gig John explained that 'The Dunnes Stores Girl' is being released as a single today (Friday 2nd Sept 2005). Not only that, but he will be appearing tonight on 'The Late Late Show' to play it.

He admitted that RTE had, bashfully, suggested he might get his hair cut - and that, much to the chagrin of his rock and roll conscience, he had acquiesced. So it should be a very spruce John Spillane we see tonight performing 'the Dunnes Stores Girl'.

Funnily enough, I have already described 'Dunnes Stores Girl' as a "really strong song, with a real 'single' feel" despite not realising at the time it was, indeed, to be a single...

The words to 'Dunnes Stores Girl' are written by Louis De Paor or 'The Foxy Poet' as John Spillane calls him.... and the story goes that John was boasting that he could write a song about anything and as a result he received a simple challenge from a fan via his website. A regular visitor and commentor on his guestbook, a girl known only as 'The Dunnes Stores Girl' posted the simple challenge 'write a song about me then...'

John, of course, took the challenge to heart and set about writing the song. Only to immediately run into difficulty. He quickly picked up the Gaelic Hit Factory hotline and left a distrought message for Louis... and Louis came to the rescue with the lyrics for 'The Dunnes Stores Girl'.

Or at least that's how the story goes. What this did to John's reputation as being able to write a song about anything, I don't know. But he did write the song about the whales, the song about the world cup, the song about the weeds and there's a hurling song on the way - so I think he's doing alright.

Anyway, the point of all this was really just to say that you should buy the single when it comes out today, but it's late and I have a tendancy to ramble on when it's this hour of the night.

For those of you who are not in Ireland, or for other reasons don't have access to a store selling the single, Amazon.co.uk stock the album that the song is on: Hey Dreamer.

Oh, and by the way, for those of you who might not be aware, Dunnes Stores are a supermarket chain!

Edit: How could I forget that the single also includes 'b-sides' of 'Orca Orca Killer Whale' and a live version of 'Magic Nights in the Lobby Bar' which featured Louis De Paor performing his poem 'An t-Amhráiní'.

'Orca Orca Killer Whale' is a must-have too... it goes down unbelievably well at live gigs, and is a great record of the Summer that three Killer Whales swam right up into the city centre. The event is recorded in a way only John Spillane could pull off - both touching and hysterically funny. Check it out.