In journalism’s heyday, new hires at a newspaper used to have to get their start on the obit beat. Sometimes I can tap into that spirt of detachment and dedication to the craft, especially when the artists have lived long, storied lives, with dozens of albums and historical, cultural books already written about them.
Other times, though, when inexplicable tragedy happens — like when Irish singer-songwriter, folk-rock band leader, actor, and community leader Glen Hansard passes away after a motorcycle accident outside Dublin — it’s like I revert to being a teenager sitting on my childhood bed, reading liner notes in tiny type in CD booklets, for the sake of the song, as a wise man once said. It’s a reminder of fandom, of believing in people because of believing in their songs.
Hansard quit school at 13 years old to busk on the streets of Dublin and become a musician. He started the Irish folk-rock band The Frames in 1990, but gained greater initial fame for his role in the film adaptation of Roddy Doyle’s novel, The Commitments, the following year. The Frames began to take off in Ireland, with a three-record stretch between 1995 and 2001 — Fitzcarraldo, Dance The Devil, and For The Birds — building momentum for the band of buskers before hitting No. 1 on the Irish charts with 2004’s Burn The Maps.
Still, it was the 2007 movie Once, made on a minimal budget and with a less-than-experienced cast, that catapulted Hansard and Czech co-star Markéta Irglová into stardom. Their song “Falling Slowly,” won Best Original Song at the Academy Awards in 2008. In 2012, the musical adaptation premiered on Broadway and won eight Tony Awards, including for Best Musical. Performing as The Swell Season, Hansard and Irglová toured the songs from Once, released another album of original material, Strict Joy, in 2009, and reunited just last year with Forward (ND review).
In the meantime, Hansard released five studio albums as a solo artist, as well as the two-part, live-recorded collection Don+t Settle. I reviewed his 2012 album Rhythm and Repose for Paste, as well as his 2018 LP Between Two Shores here at No Depression (although that link is lost to the internet sands due to the latest website migration).
I was supposed to interview Hansard once around the 2023 release of All That Was East Is West of Me Now, but at the last minute, our schedules didn’t align. I never even met him, really, other than a courteous “Great set! Thanks!” while leaving a known-secret of an after show at a New York City pub last spring.
The weirdest, parasocial part about this kind of work is that I didn’t know Hansard personally. Fandom is complex like that, grieving a person you didn’t know, trying to reconcile who you think they are — based on limited and selective information — while also forming a deeply intimate relationship with the pieces of themselves they do share through art.
So many of my colleagues and friends in this community did know Hansard, though. And everything they’ve said, every story they’ve shared in the wake of his untimely passing, is more gregarious and generous than the previous tribute.
Some focused on his inimitable voice — the voice of a generation of Irish people, really. Hansard always sang like he was fighting for the attention of someone to throw some Euros in his open guitar case on Grafton Street still.
But that analogy isn’t quite right, because Hansard never seemed to be playing for the money or the fame. The last time I saw him, at Newport Folk Festival in 2025, he dedicated time in The Swell Season’s set to encourage up-and-coming singer Josh Okeefe to perform an original tune. The two previous times I saw him in New York City — once at the prestigious Radio City Music Hall and once as the Irish dive bar The Scratcher — he invited any and all members of the Broadway cast of Once in attendance to sing with the band. It really seemed like he derived more pleasure in communing and sharing than anything else.
When he did take the lead, though, when he unleashed that weathered, impenetrable voice, Hansard could quiet and rouse a room in equal measure. In fact, my favorite performance might still be this clip from 2010, when I saw The Swell Season in Miami. After the band played a full set of songs from Once and Strict Joy, Hansard grabbed his beat up old Takamine and came out for an encore. He didn’t plug in, walked in front of the microphone and monitors, and belted “Say It To Me Now” on his own to the stunned 2,700-person capacity theater.
Maybe then, fandom is actually quite simple: Once soundtracked my early adulthood, both falling in and out of love. Frames records helped me integrate and assimilate to life on the other side of the pond when I lived in England. The first time I went to Dublin in 2011, I walked as much of Grafton Street as time allowed, hoping to catch him because I’d read stories of him growing up busking there. (Every Christmastime, from 2010 until last year, he actually held an annual busking benefit concert on that same road to raise funds for Dublin Simon Community, a charity helping the city’s unhoused population.) I never did see him on the streets of Dublin, but I simply loved seeing him perform, anytime and anywhere I could.
And he was seemingly everywhere — always on tour, jamming with somebody, buying a round of pints, supporting new artists he believed in, or just chatting with whomever was next to him on the subway. Hansard’s place in this folk music scene felt omnipresent. In some ways, then, his sudden absence doesn’t seem real because his influence — and his magical voice — were already, always everywhere.
As the the Irish Gaeilge saying goes when someone dies, marcaidh ar aghaidh mo chara. Ride on, my friend.
Hansard's funeral will take place at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin 8 on Tuesday, August 4 and will be streamed on RTÉ News and RIP.IE.
Read on for an onslaught of tributes from across the music world.
Fruition ran into some vehicle trouble while on tour and are still trying to raise money to offset the repair costs. They're avoiding an "official" crowdfunder, but if anyone would like to donate, they're available @fruitionpdx on Venmo and PayPal. And/or buy a ticket to see them live! The band's new record, Something More, is due out August 28.
Valerie June announced a new EP titled Brighter Blue, due out September 11 via Concord. The lead single interpolates two classic folk-blues songs, "Smokestack Lightning” and “In the Pines.” As she stated in a press release:
Few songs have traveled as far and wide as "Smokestack Lightning." Since Howlin' Wolf's landmark 1956 recording, it has been embraced by generations of artists across blues, rock, folk, psychedelia, and grunge. Inspired by that tradition of reinvention, I gathered a blazing electric band to forge our own path through the song. We fused the haunting imagery of "In the Pines" popularized by Lead Belly, the visceral edge of Nirvana, and the electrifying spirit of Sister Rosetta Tharpe's guitar work into a single roaring performance. The result is a road-tested blend of roots music and rock 'n' roll that feels equally at home in the Mississippi Delta and on a sun-baked American highway.
After four years away, Ian Noe returns with a new concept album. Canyon Falls Trailer Band comprises 16 songs that tell the story of a fictional band playing a one-night-only gig to gain entrance into an exclusive music industry. Lead single "The Heidelberg Fisherman’s Ball" is out now and the LP is due out September 25 via Thirty Tigers.
Richard Thompson announced his 20th studio album, Hippies, Thugs and Heroes, due out October 16 via New West Records.
WHAT WE'RE LISTENING TO
Joshua Ray Walker - Ain't Dead Yet (ND review)
Kaïa Kater - "Sidney"
Billy Strings - "Mill Town Flood" (from his forthcoming album, So Much for Goodbyes, due out August 28 via Reprise Records)
NEW RELEASES - 7/31/26
The Family - Delusions of Grandeur
Family Stereo - The Thread
Wyatt Flores - Scared of Heights
GA-20 with Charlie Musselwhite - Blues Now
J.P. Reali - Grateful Blues [EP]
COMING SOON - 8/7/26
Corb Lund - Dark Horses
Margaret Glaspy - I Am Both
The Mountain Goats - DAYS
Grace Potter - Trespasser
Silverada - Living Proof
Various Artists - Sittin' with Blaze
Charlie Warsham - Once Upon A Second Time Around
Rowena Wise - Bad Things Feel Good
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