Meryl Streek “Songs For The Deceased” A Call For The Living To Fight Back

Meryl Streek’s second album “Songs for the Deceased” will be released on 25th October 2024. You should buy it because he is a brilliant songwriter, singer and producer. You should also buy it because he’s at war and warriors need allies.

His war is our war: he directs his rage at landlords, bosses, priests and RTE and he stands up in defence of their victims: the poor and the silenced. As he says in his new song about his late uncle Paddy, “you will always be remembered, and you will always be missed, once I have a voice”.

If you haven’t already listened to his first album “796” (2022) you should buy it today.

The title track, a song about the 796 children found by Catherine Corless in the mass grave in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home, is one of four songs on that album that take aim the industrial-scale sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children carried out by the religious orders and “covered up by the state”. 

He points out that “they said they’re sorry, but they’ve actually done nothing about it”.  You could read the thousands of pages of the 2009 Ryan Report, the 2011 MacAleese Report, the 2021 Report into the Mother and Baby Homes and not get as succinct an assessment of the criminal theocracy that suffocated this country for decades and still has a stranglehold in education and health.

For many, the standout track on “796” is “Death to the Landlord”; a song that lays bare the parasitic nature of landlordism: “And this song goes out to any two-faced prick politician making money off a mother and two kids for a bedsit”. 

As socialists, as housing activists, we see the suffering he describes in these lines every single day. Who amongst us does not agree with Meryl when he sings “And if it was up to me, I’d have your head on a plate!”?

He continues his attack on “bloodsucking landlords” in his brilliant song “If this is Life” from the new album.

Rory Hearne guests on vocals “things won’t change unless the young generation really stand up”, there’s a melodic guitar riff from Pete Holidai from the band “Radiators from Space” but the absolute star of the song is Meryl himself: the complex arrangement, the hilarious video and the defiant lyrics “I want to live a life over fifty as so many around me fail to do” create a masterpiece of rage and hope.

The message in his songs is clear. But it is not simplistic. 

Another stand out track from his first album, is “Suicide”. In this song he manages to combine a raw, razor-sharp attack on the rich at the same time as he expresses deep love for their victims.

He takes aim at those who benefit from capitalism: “dickheads in suits pocketing cash and I’ve nowhere to live because of their agenda”. But Meryl knows who he loves. He mentions his “darlin Ma Jen” and says he has a “strong heart for anyone who’s left us early”.

The song “Demon” is a love song. It is about the death of the singer’s father. But it’s also a love song to where he is from – Darndale. The details he describes in that song are recognisable to any working class kid:

“And he died in a hospital bed./Surrounded by the ones that loved him most/A half a can of Heineken on his bedside table with yesterday’s newspaper/With Tomorrow’s odds circled, wondering where all his time went?”

In these few words the singer sums up his father’s life and legacy but there is no hint of cliché or distance. He loves his da and respects his background. In another song, “Da”, he describes a memory that could only come from someone who had lived in Darndale or Coolock: “But the times we had remind me of tenpenny bags/Blagging free chocolate off Cadbury’s/On those long winter nights”.

Meryl’s next concert in Dublin is not until 29th November 2024. We should all go to it. The fact is, Meryl plays regularly in the UK and in Europe – he supported Public Image Limited and he has eleven gigs in the UK and the Netherlands between September and that Dublin gig.

The last time he played in Dublin was in March.

James Joyce once commented that Ireland was the “sow that eats its farrow”. By that he meant that the best of us – the brave, the selfless and the gifted – are despised and sent into exile. 

Meryl’s song “Matter of Fact” describes battering at the doors of the middle class, “gatekept” music industry: “Pleading for years and years trying to get into Hotpress Magazine”.

The fact that he plays more gigs outside of Ireland, the fact that it is inconceivable that the Late Late Show would let him on to sing; these tell us that we are dealing with a great musical talent and a working class hero.

That doesn’t mean that we can’t see more of him here: buy his albums, go to his gigs, talk to your friends and family about him. He’s a warrior and he’s on our side.

The album may be called “Song For The Deceased” but his music is a call to the living - to rise up and take on the landlords and wealthy parasites who destroy so many working class lives.