Fontaines DC’s Musical Heritage

By Deputy Entertainment Editor Darren keogh

Fontaines D.C., the critically acclaimed Irish post-punk band, draws heavily from a rich lyrical heritage steeped in literary and cultural traditions. Their lyrics are often poetic and introspective, reflecting influences from Ireland's vibrant literary history, including poets, novelists, and storytellers. This article will discuss some key aspects of their musical heritage. 

Dogrel, released in 2019 on Partisan Records, takes its name from “doggerel”, meaning poetry that is irregular in rhythm and in rhyme. This of course was a homage to the working class Irish poets, such as the ones the band look up to the most. Grian Chatten says that at the time they felt as a band: ‘disconnected from what was going on around them musically and in terms of poetry and stuff like that.’ And so the band passed around a ‘notebook and encouraged each other to write down a line or two.’ They released two collections of poetry; Vroom, which is inspired by American Beat poets, and Wingding, inspired by Irish poets. The average listener of Dogrel will note that most songs are associated with their Irish heritage, literature and cultural emblems and indeed with living in a decaying city with gentrification on the rise. The band felt this needed to be documented and so they put their feelings down for the Irish people to react to, or not! 

The band frequently references Dublin, much like James Joyce did in his works. Their lyrics capture the urban grit and charm of the city, painting vivid pictures of its streets, characters, and moods. At the time the album was written, some members of the band were living in the Liberties in Dublin. Their song “Liberty Belle” gives way to just some of the domestic issues that the lads saw around Dublin. Grian’s “ready-steady violence” chorus was motivated, he told Uncut magazine, by his confrontation with “domestic violence, bloody noses, heroin addicts curled up in phone boxes,” on his daily commute to work and his only coping mechanism was to listen to his iPod. The boys are not shy about referencing their Irish lyrical heroes, with such songs as: “Boys in the Better Land”, and lyrics like: “With face like sin and a heart like a James Joyce Novel”, they bring one of their favorite writers into the song who they say they felt like while they were living in Dublin during this period, as if they were suffering the same sort of ‘entrapment’ as the character Leopold Bloom suffered in Ulysses. In this song it could be said that they are singing about getting out of Dublin eventually, as this influence can be heard in their stream-of-consciousness delivery and free-flowing verse, which molds well with the punkish energy of their music.

Aside from the lyrics of the songs, their album and singles artwork must get a mention. The cover for Dogrel has a well known Irish circus, Duffys on it and was taken in the 1960’s, which would be a common childhood memory for many Irish people. The singles that followed had popular Irish characters from around Dublin in the twentieth century. “Liberty Belle” has Thomas ‘Bang Bang’ Dudley on the cover and  “Too real” has a popular character that used to go around lighting the lamps at Phoenix Park. This shows pride and honor, to have these Irish characters on their discography. 

One could say that the history of Ireland has been handed down to these lads for musical use. Their sophomore album, A Hero's Death, has The Dying Cú Chulainn statue (a nod to last month's Motley crossword) on the cover which is often invoked by Irish nationalists. In fact the statue was adopted as a memorial to the 1916 Easter Rising, which took place in Dublin’s General Post Office. The statue was unveiled in 1935 by Eamonn de Valera and he described it as “symbolizing the dauntless courage and abiding constancy of our people.” The unveiling of the statue marks the beginning of the Irish Revolution and so it says a lot about the band, as we can see a clear vision of Irish heritage they are passing down to their fans when they put this statue on the cover of their album. Not only are they showing their love for Irish hero’s but also lamenting the fact that such Irish heroes as Cú Chulainn are embedded in the Irish psyche and have been in the past, as a part of the poem’s and stories of so many Irish writers' like: Pádraig Pearse, W.B. Yeats and Samuel Beckett. This album cover proves that the Fontaines are proud of their Irish heritage and that they are willing to continue this tradition of Irish literature and nationalism through music. Themes of identity, nationalism and a relationship with Ireland show up in the song “I don't belong”, and these are themes that resonated with Irish writers also such as W.B. Yeats and Seamus Heaney. Their poetic style often blends raw emotion with a lyrical depth reminiscent of Heaney and Yeats’ poems. This is a skill the band  have produced as a recurring theme throughout their early career. 

Their third album Skinty Fia was given an Irish title, translated as Bearla as ‘damnation of the dear’, which was a common saying Grian’s grandmother used and is rough slang for: ‘for f@*k sake’, which sits heavily in his memory of an older Ireland he knew as a child. One song to mention is the tune “I Love you”, which sounds like it could only have been written from abroad, looking back on their homeland, as there is both anger and love expressed at the same time. By now the band had moved to London, as their record label was based there. This is something that Thin Lizzy and many other Irish bands also did in the 70’s and 80’s to gain a wider audience, tour and produce more albums. Living in London and looking back on their beloved home, the band seem to reflect on Ireland's socio-political history, its harsh atrocities and its catastrophic brutality. Grian tells NME that it is “the first overtly political song we’ve written”.

Their fourth album Romance just released this year, and received two nominations at the 67th Annual Grammy Awards: Best Rock Album and Best Alternative Music Performance (for "Starbuster"). The references to Irish literature are minimal, the album is a big step away from their musical heritage. It is more influenced by dystopian futures, as the band are said to have watched Japanese manga and science fiction movies while on the road. Their image has changed also and it is something that I think many fans are trying to adapt to. With that said, there is no grudge against this new sound and look, but one might ask: have they lost their Irish musical  heritage, or are they just having a short Romance with change. Only time will tell, but then again, as Grian says; “Never let a clock tell you what you got time for, it only goes around, goes around, goes around.”