After the joy of the wedding, Gráinne and I took ourselves off to Santiago de Compostela. It was one of the best holidays we’ve had. The history, the food, and mostly the simple gift of downtime. To just sit and be.
And yet, even surrounded by all that beauty, I could still hear the unfinished songs playing in my head. This new album will not leave me alone. It teases me constantly, every song audible, especially the ones still waiting on lyrics.
One of the days, we walked from Fisterra out to the lighthouse, and one of those unfinished songs finally unfolded. An idea arrived and exploded into words I had to write down. We walked that stretch of the Camino with me singing patchy fragments of lyrics, until I could sit and get them onto paper outside a small church.
The idea had been sitting with me for a while, a reflection on Corinthians, on Paul’s line about love keeping no record of wrongs. It’s a phrase I find both fascinating and difficult, an ideal I aspire to but rarely manage. To accept wrongdoing, not take it personally, and let the need to hold onto it fall away.
That short, sweltering, beautiful walk teased out the verses, but the chorus arrived whole and immediate. No mystery needed. “Love Keeps No Record of Wrongs.”
I’m looking forward to plugging in and getting stuck into demos for this song and the others waiting behind it. I have pages of scribbled lyrics, some illegible, some incoherent, all gems waiting for a bit of care to become something someone else can understand.
It’s always hard coming home from a holiday, but this time it feels lighter. ❤️
