Paul Dempsey isn’t afraid of death and doesn’t think in terms of age. But that doesn’t mean turning 40 hasn’t had some impact.
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“I’m not really someone who thinks a lot about how old I am or how old anyone is,” he said.
“I don’t feel any different at 40 than I did at 30 but the thing that plays on my mind, without getting morbid, is that I’m now older than my father ever was. He died at 40 and there’s something strange about that now, looking at the world and being an age that my father didn’t reach.
“I’m sure it will find it’s way into my writing, this slightly changed view of things.”
The thing that plays on my mind, without getting morbid, is that I’m now older than my father ever was.
- Paul Dempsey
Dempsey’s father died in a car accident when the musician was a baby.
The loss, Dempsey said, forever changed how he viewed time and its passing.
“There’s an inevitability; I’m not afraid of death. When you grow up, losing a parent young and losing a lot of family members young, you grow up with a different attitude to death than maybe some of your friends or some of the people you know,” he said.
“So I have a different outlook on life and death and time. I always have a bit of a sense or urgency about my life and what I do with my time. I’m fascinated by life and time and the limited time we have and what we do with our time and ourselves and who we decide to be, and you’ll find those themes in my songs.”
Last year’s Morningless from Strange Loop, his second solo album separate from longstanding and celebrated band Something For Kate, is one such song that deals with urgency.
Its surrealist film clip depicts Dempsey as an “almost Hitchcock-like character” reversing frantically along a cliff face while 60s mod types awkwardly sip on martinis and smoke cigarettes.
“Morningless is more about that sense of urgency about time...that feeling, the following day, the following morning, you’re waiting for the Earth to turn and the sun to come up, but it’s not happening,” he said.
“(It’s) that sense of time standing still but you’re still racing in a direction that’s not leading you forward. You’re frantically chasing after something but time isn’t travelling in the same direction you are.”
Dempsey will perform at Karova Lounge on January 27.
For tickets, visit www.karovalounge.com