Beyond music

Just the tonic for a broken heart

Beyond music

If you are suffering from a broken heart, if you’re heart feels wounded and exhausted by the slings and arrows of daily life, or if you’re just feeling down, you need to listen to Sharon Shannon. She’s a real tonic!

Sharon is a button accordion player who plays traditional Irish music and I had the unique experience of going to her gig last night when she played in Salisbury, about two miles from my new home, and I was completely, and I mean completely, blown away. It was absolutely astonishing. Never heard anything like it. Probably the very best and most uplifting gig I’ve ever been to, and I’ve been to many memorable ones over the decades.

As soon as she started it was as if Sharon opened the doors to her heart and there was this outpouring of energy, the energy of love is the only way I can describe it. Such joy, such happiness, she was smiling from ear to ear at the sheer exuberance of the music that came pouring out of her instrument. And she played a pretty mean tin whistle too. Lively in the extreme and unlike most contemporary music, it was completely non-toxic. There was a childlike innocence, extraordinary for someone in her fifties – I thought she was 20 years younger.

Even if you arrived feeling deeply depressed I defy you not to have your foot tapping and to be feeling completely uplifted by the time her performance reaches it’s climax. It really was a transcendental experience, as if the musicians and their instruments and the audience had disappeared and only the music, and more importantly, the spirit of the music, remained.

Great medicine for the heart and psyche, and no bad side effects.

I believe she’s touring in the UK at the moment. If you look online you can probably find a performance near you before too long. Otherwise there are plenty of CD's.

(PS I have no vested interest whatsoever in promoting this music. I am merely sharing a wonderful experience).