After the success of the show To The Light late last year with my old band Granny’s Intentions, a short solo run of The Voyage - a collection of songs  based on the ups and downs of family life - is due to start in March 2012. The fact that the title song from this cycle has been an almost permanent fixture in the top ten of the Irish singer/songwriter section of iTunes since it started many years ago has been a blessing I can thank Christy Moore for.

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                                THE VOYAGE  23rd Anniversary since launch.

                                      Life is an ocean, love is a boat,

                                In troubled waters it keeps us afloat;

                                When we started the voyage there was just me and you,

                                Now look around us, we have our own crew.

I sat down to write The Voyage twenty three years ago partly as a gesture of gratitude to my sailor father for having held a steady hand on the tiller of our family’s fortunes during the turbulent times of my upbringing. When I mutinied at sixteen and set off as a professional singer, he didn’t speak to me for over a year. After that, whenever I visited home, he invariably greeted me with a curt “Are you making any money from that mug’s game yet?” I realise now that this biting remark disguised a deep concern for my wellbeing. So, I was delighted that my father lived long enough to witness the first success of The Voyage.

      The idea to write on the family theme grew organically out of my earlier excavations of family history in my album Just Another Town. Though my parents’ marriage had been a rocky affair at times, they showed a deep respect for one another and managed to create an atmosphere of overarching security and affection in our home. Measuring the inevitable early struggles of my own marriage against my parents’ relationship, I wrote a song called Trying to get the Balance Right (Mary Black), and this led on to reflections on the whole institution of marriage and child rearing. Over a six or seven year period my thoughts on the subject crystallized into a series of songs that eventually became The Voyage album. The title song was one of the last songs of the collection to come to me. After exposing the raw nerves of the marriage struggle in many of the other lyrics – and maybe because I was open enough to give full expression to these familial difficulties - I felt empowered to write and sing of the more positive side of the marriage adventure with conviction and sincerity.

       2012 is the 23rd Anniversary since the release of the first of many covers of The Voyage, by Christy Moore. In the Irish folk section of iTunes download charts, Christy’s version has almost had a permanent place in the top ten since the chart was established many years ago. Politicians, clergymen, writers, journalists and school teachers have eulogised the lyric. Choirs sing it. Comedians gag on it. Marriage counsellors swear by it. Most popular songs have a short life span. The Voyage grows more popular with age. Many standard ballads are restricted by national boundaries. The Voyage is sung all over the world in a variety of languages.

     Niall Stokes of Hot Press has predicted that The Voyage will be around long after most popular rock songs are long forgotten. This echoes Christy Moore’s assessment that the song is destined for a high place in the cannon of folk “standards”.

        If The Voyage is on its way to becoming a modern classic, as many believe, its intrinsic appeal lies in the affection that most of us feel for our families. This and the fact that we are all on this mysterious life-journey together and our common aim seems to be more than just a safe haven.