Thom Moore lyrics and inspirations Sligo to Spain

SLIGO DOWN TO SPAIN

Drain your cup and smile your smile:

tell him goodbye for a while.

Then turn away from holy Knocknarea,

and weather that's all surprise:

'Bright spots with lashing winds and rain,

from Sligo right down to Spain.'

Here's a tale of love and woe:

a woman meets a man who shows

he's the right one—father, son, and lonely host,

that's all that she needs to know.

'Bright spots with lashing winds and rain,

from Sligo right down to Spain.'

Right man, wrong the time: love sublime.

Winds in Sligo blow, blow you 'cross that line.

One last time, walk where you will:

up the river to Lough Gill.

Just hold your lies: undo those ties

and part while the day is still.

'Bright spots with lashing winds and rain,

from Sligo right down to Spain.'

Go back home, go far away,

where sun and strangers fill the days:

sunshine to burn away your shame,

and strangers to shape your clay.

'Bright spots with lashing winds and rain,

from Sligo right down to Spain.'

Where you go and what you say

will never, never be the same.

No love song can ever hold a flame

to the radio's cold refrain:

'Bright spots with lashing winds and rain,

from Sligo right down to Spain.'

One of the many things to stick in my mind from my first sojourn in Sligo in the 1970s was the voice of the late Maurice O'Doherty, whose wonderful Donegal baritone was commonly heard reading the news and weather at lunchtime over what was at the time the only radio station in the Republic of Ireland – RTE radio. He must have said other things about the weather in Ireland, but the only thing I could ever recall, probably due to the frequency with which he said it, was "Bright spots, with lashing winds and rain out of the northwest." It wasn't exactly news up there in the northwest with the lashing winds and rain, but the phrase did seem to hint at a metaphor for an unsuccessful relationship, something that could eventually be useful in a song. The final product was written many years after the departure from this life of the magnificently black-browed Donegal man. So that was one goal unfulfilled – Maurice never got to hear it or my rationale. Its melody has a truly curious origin … this time I ripped off one of my own songs, changing it from a minor key to a major, and adding, at Gavin Ralston’s urging, what the songwriters call a ‘bridge’, with a melody different from but complementary to the basic AB folk-song structure. But I won’t tell you which one: amateur sleuths must have their work …