The Wind Doesn't Blow This Far Right [LP]

Lisa O'Neill - The Wind Doesn't Blow This Far Right [LP]

This EP is comprised of a group of six tracks, they include Lisa's haunting rendition of Bob Dylan's 'All The Tired Horses' recorded to soundtrack the closing scene of the final episode of Peaky Blinders, plus 'Homeless In The Thousands (Dublin in the Digital Age)' featuring Peter Doherty, which was released as a stand-alone single in January of this year. It was not the first time O'Neill has written about social injustices on the cusp of a change. Songs like 'Rock the Machine' about unemployment in the Dublin dock lands, 'When Cash Was King' about the move to a cashless society and 'Violet Gibson' about the Irish woman who attempted to assassinate Mussolini in 1926. This new song was written in response to the growing issue of homelessness in Dublin and Ireland. 
 
Another song on the EP, 'The Wind Doesn't Blow This Far Right', a moving and powerful song for our times, Lisa describes thus, "I began writing this song in November 2017 and I finished it in January 2025. My song is a reaction to the unsettled times that we live in.", The video - watch here - was directed by Ellius Grace and featured musicians Kate Tempest, Kevin Rowland, Spider Stacey of The Pogues and Iona Zajac plus renowned Nigerian/Irish poet Feli Speaks, actresses Olwen Fouere and Hazel Doupe and actors John McArdle and Jack Walsh amongst many others. 
 
Added to these are a new song and recent live favourite 'Mother Jones' about the Irish activist who emigrated to America and became a union organiser, Mary G. Harris Jones, who in 1902 was called 'the most dangerous woman in America' - following her organising of miners against mine owners leading directly to the introduction of America's first child labor laws. The EP is completed with a moving reading of the James Stevens poem 'Autumn 1915'.
It's been a remarkable few years for Irish songwriter Lisa O'Neill. Her acclaimed recent album 'All of This Is Chance' reached number 1 in the Irish Indie Charts and ranked highly on many critics 2023's Albums of The Year Lists. Amongst the wealth of praise, Gideon Coe at BBC 6 Music picked it as his Album OfThe Year. It was No. 3 in Mojo Magazine's Folk Albums Of The Year, and No.24 in their main Albums Of The Year List. Bob Boilen at NPR deemed it his No.3 Album of The Year and it was one of Songlines' Top 10 Albums Of The Year and Uncut Magazine's No.17 Album Of The Year and at No. 33 with The Quietus. May 2023 saw Lisa make a memorable appearance on Later with Jools Holland. 
 
A raconteur in the truest sense of the word, O'Neill is a five-time BBC Folk Award nominee and her previous album Heard a Long Gone Song was named The Guardian's 2019 Folk Album of the Year. She had two songs feature in Peaky Blinders - Blackbird, her own composition, and an adaptation of Bob Dylan's All the Tired Horses soundtracked the final scene of the epic TV drama.