FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
Watched a programme on the telly a while back called Sad Songs On The BBC. I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for. A few tissues wouldn’t have gone astray. It kicked off with Paul McCartney singing, solo, Eleanor Rigby, one of the Beatles most poetic and poignant compositions (as is She’s Leaving Home). Two others really got to me: In The Living Years by Mike And The Mechanics, an all-time favourite of mine, about a son not telling his father that he loved him in his living hears.
I never had issues with my dad but, as in the song, I never told him that I loved him. Sorry, dad.
And then there was Dolly Parton singing Coat of Many Colours which resonated with me profoundly and reminded me of a piece I broadcast on RTE’s Sunday Miscellany some 16 years ago. Following is an edited version of that broadcast.
I have a soft spot for Dolly Parton. I developed that soft spot almost 50 years ago on a drive from Limassol in Cyprus to Nicosia, its capital city. The year is 1977, my late sister Eadie and I have just landed in Limassol Airport. It’s maybe 11 at night and we are met at the airport by my sister’s driver.
Well he wasn’t exactly my sister’s driver, he was a United Nations driver and made himself available for Eadie who worked with the UN in war-torn Cyprus. As we drive through the night I am listening to the BBC’s World Service on the radio and the soothing tones of some English gentleman who tells us that Dolly Parton will arrive in the studio soon for a chat. Dolly was running a little late so the honey-voiced presenter played her Coat Of Many Colours.
It’s late in the night, my sister snoozes and then this wonderful, rippling voice resounds throughout the car. I am captivated by the quivering country sound of Dolly Parton but, if I am, I am equally captivated by the lyrics of the song she herself composed.
As I listen to the lyrics, tears come to my eyes. I’m a little jet-lagged but I am also sentimental. Very. As I listen to Dolly Parton I know exactly where she’s coming from. I understand this Coat Of Many Colours that she’s singing about. I understand her mother who made this multi-coloured coat for her. I know her mother. She is my mother.
She is perhaps the universal mother of hard times, tough times, times of want. And now, here in a country, thousands of miles from my home town I am suddenly thinking of my mother, remembering her Singer sewing machine, a machine she worked late into the night, often, to make dresses for my sisters and to alter trousers and coats for my brother and myself – coats, not of many colours but, of dull greys and browns mostly. One coat in particular I shall never forget – one of my sister’s coats that my mother decided could, with a stitch here and there, make a warm rigout for me, her youngest son, for the winter chill.
I argued with my mother that it would never do but as in any argument with my mother, whether I was 10, 20, 30 or 40, I always lost. I wore the coat. It was a disaster. My classmates instantly recognised it as a girl’s coat and made fun of me. But now, this night in this strange country, listening to this woman and her Coat Of Many Colours, I am quite overcome with emotion. I think of my mother and her Singer sewing machine, and I think of my sister Eadie, snoozing beside me, and how far she has come in the world.
Eadie who had less formal education than any of her siblings but who, through determination and resilience, and the backing of an equally resilient and hard-working mother, made her own successful way in the world.
And I am thinking, I don’t know much about you Dolly Parton but I know where you’re coming from and I love your song. And like never before I appreciate my mother and her sewing machine and even that coat of mine, not of many colours, but of many blushes.
