Mike Scott’s interest in WB Yeats’ work was first hinted at in mid-80s Waterboys shows, with Scott hollering the words of The Four Ages Of Man as coda to This Is The Sea’s Spirit. It found form with The Waterboys’ dynamic interpretation of The Stolen Child on Fisherman’s Blues and has continued in various forms ever since.
Recently, Scott’s been on the road playing full sets of Yeats’ poems married to his own tunes. This album seems the culmination of years of love and endeavour in pursuit of a contextualising of Yeats; not a slavish adherence to the Yeats canon, but a development of the language and intent that merges the great man’s words to this great musician’s arrangements.
Yeats moved between folklore, spiritualism and contemporary pieces centred on Irish nationalism. Scott’s studied over-articulation, beautifully coloured by additional vocalist Katie Kim, dramatises both the mystical and the political in an artistically sympathetic manner. At their best – The Faery’s Last Song, An Irish Airman Foresees His Death – these are achingly poignant pieces. With others invoking the “big music” of the early Waterboys, this is a major addition to Scott’s own canon.
