The Sudden Death of Glen Hansard is a Heartbreaker

A short take

I was going to write something about Dr. Fauci’s disgraceful, disrespectful non-testimony in front of the Senate. But there are so many great pieces out there that can cover it much better than I ever could, like Miranda Devine.

The moment that hit me hardest was when Bernie Moreno asked him to stand and face those who were punished for speaking the truth, and Fauci refused.

But the truth is that my mind and my heart were elsewhere. I woke up to the news that the great Glen Hansard had died. He was only 56.

It was hard for me to focus my thoughts on writing about 2020 and COVID when I was being pulled back to 2007, when the film Once introduced the world to Glen Hansard and his beautiful song Falling Slowly.

Was it really that long ago? So much has changed since then and not for the better. It isn’t that Hansard was present in our modern-day culture. He wasn’t. But he was committed to the art of music and songwriting up until the day he died. He’d been playing at a pub in Ireland and then died in a fatal motorcycle crash in the wee hours of the morning. He was 56.

He is survived by his wife, Finnish poet Maire Saairtsa, and their three-year-old son, Christy.

Over the years, I find myself gravitating back to Hansard to listen to his covers of Van Morrison because he sings those songs almost better than Van the Man.

Hansard tells this wonderful story of meeting Morrison, who wasn’t very nice to him at first. Eventually, though, he trusted him and the two went into a room together and played music for hours. Hansard got to hear his idol sing all of his favorite songs. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall. Or a grease stain on the carpet. Or a piece of lint on a t-shirt.

In some ways, music isn’t a part of my life anymore because so much of the music industry is sucked into the Doomsday Cult of the Left and they make me feel unwelcome. I always debate this point silently: am I just getting old and out of touch, or is there no great music anymore?

Maybe because everything has become so political, it’s hard to find pleasure in any of it.

I truly cannot stand Bruce Springsteen, as you all know, but he paid tribute to Glen Hansard, and for that, I have to put aside my resentment and appreciate the time they played together, one of my favorite Springsteen songs from back when I used to love the guy, Drive All Night.

It made me sad all over again that Bruce Springsteen has taken a side and abandoned so many of his fans, the people who made him a “rich man in a poor man’s shirt.” Hansard never did that. He might have cared about the problems in Ireland, but he didn’t make his entire identity about fighting Trump.

He was never Bono or Eddie Vedder or Springsteen screaming about fascism - he was never a blowhard. He just kept it about the music, and maybe that’s why so many on the Right are also mourning the loss.

Hansard was one of the few people who could find the deepest passion in the best songs, like this Van Morrison cover - just brilliant.

He also loved Bob Dylan and covered his songs too.

Once was just one of the great movies that came out in 2007. That was the last year before 2008, when everything would dramatically change. It was the year of the Crisis that sparked the Fourth Turning, after all. But it was also the end of our shared culture.

This is Matt Walsh's hypothesis, anyway, who did an entire episode on the end of the monoculture that brought all of us Americans together. 2007 was the year No Country for Old Men won the Best Picture Oscar, and it really does feel like those days are not only long gone but are never coming back.

Back then, I had no idea how good we had it or that it would ever go away. Who knows. I can only hope things really do move in cycles and before long, we’ll have great culture again.

Van Morrison inspired Glen Hansard, so maybe Glen Hansard will inspire others who might sit on a corner and sing a song to people walking by.

It is not surprising Hansard was known for his cover of Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, one of my favorite songs off one of my favorite albums — remember albums? The lyrics will always make me think of him.

This performance is an all-timer:

If I ventured in the slipstream
Between the viaducts of your dream
Where immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch in the back roads stop
Could you find me?
Would you kiss-a my eyes?
To lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again
To be born again
From the far side of the ocean
If I put the wheels in motion
And I stand with my arms behind me
And I’m pushin’ on the door
Could you find me?
Would you kiss-a my eyes?
To lay me down
In silence easy
To be born again
To be born again

Rest in peace, oh great one. Thanks for bringing so much music into my life. You will be missed.