The immeasurable PJ Harvey once wisely noted, “The craft, the writing of a song, is about creating a story, a life story, a world within three minutes, but that’s the frame, if you like; the picture frame.”
In September of 2020, Ireland’s most celebrated blues and jazz musician, the legendary Mary Coughlan, filed her frames and exhibited them in a song gallery for her 15th studio album (not including the Best Of collections), Life Stories.
Life Stories chronicles Coughlan’s motley upbringing, career and later years, tackling subjects of childhood trauma, alcohol addiction and drug abuse with a retrospectively honest, and at times humorous, gaze.
Mary Coughlan Victorian tour dates
- Friday 10 March – Golden Vine Hotel, Bendigo
- 11, 12, 13 March – Port Fairy Folk Festival
- Thursday 30 March – Star Hotel, Yackandandah
- Friday 31 March – Burrinja Cultural Centre
- Saturday 1 April – Archies Creek Hotel, Archies Creek
- Sunday 2 April – Jazzlab, Brunswick
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It’s not the first time she has divulged the intimate details of her personal life. She bared all in her tell-all memoir Bloody Mary: My Story, telling the stories of her 32 documented hospital visits due to alcohol poisoning, but across tracks Two Breaking Into One, Family Life and Twelve Steps Forward and Ten Steps Back, Mary further unpacks her turbulent life and life learning carried by her dusty Billie Holiday-likened bellow.
She details, “I started to drink at, believe it or not, at 30 or 29. I started drinking around the same time as I was becoming very, very well-known in the music business and had three small children. I was abused when I was little – seven until I was about 12 – and I didn’t really tell anyone. I ended up in a – well, they called in Ireland at the time – a mental asylum, and they now call them a mental health institution. I was locked up there for a long time because I tried to commit suicide when I was 16. And then it kind of started coming out and then I started drinking when I started thinking about how awful it was that this happened.”
During this drinking period, Mary’s family, her three children, started regrettably disappearing from the wall mountings.
“I had abandoned my own children, my first three children. And emotionally, because I wasn’t able to deal with it, I was distant. It eventually took me two years to get sober and a few different tries. It took place in the Richland Centre in Dublin and they would bring in the children every Tuesday and kids would tell me what it would have been like for them when I was drinking.
“You know, they were much older then and I listened, and I think if you really listen to that and you let that settle into your head, I don’t think you could ever – I certainly could never – drink again.”
Coughlin, who now has six grandchildren, three of whom live with her along with her daughter and son-in-law, holds her relationships with her family close, with the sentiment burning bright on the tear-jerker ballad Safe and Sound.
“I wrote the song about my grandchildren because I knew that my own children are such incredible people and their partners and the kids are just so beautiful, so they’ll always be safe and sound within their family.”
Coughlan will be bringing the Life Stories photo album of songs to Australia across March and April, for an extensive tour covering much of rural Australia. She’s no stranger to the Australian plains though; her daughter lived in Sydney for two years, and she’s travelled the East Coast extensively during family visits to New Zealand (her husband is of New Zealand background). Additionally, her last performing visit to Australia saw her head into the continent’s centre, playing in Uluru.
“So last time I came out, I went to Uluru and some women there organised a huge gig in Alice [Springs] for us. I put it on Facebook that I was looking forward to doing a few days around and she said, ‘Would you come and do a concert for us? I’ll guarantee it will sell out’. So we went there and she did. So I’m always open to doing things like that, it’s really good fun.”
On this trip, Coughlin will be playing three Victorian shows at Bendigo’s Golden Vine Hotel, Yackandandah’s Star Hotel, Archies Creek Hotel, Brunswick’s Jazzlab, Upwey’s Burrinja Cultural Centre and returning to Port Fairy Folk Festival. Surprisingly the Irish folk royalty has only played Port Fairy once before.
“Can you believe it? They didn’t want me,” she laughs. “I’m a little apprehensive about actually getting on the plane. It’s the first time since 2020, but I know that when I have my boarding pass in my hands, I’ll be ready to rock. I’m really looking forward to it! After that, I’ll be hanging up the mic.”
Stress less, that’s only the Irish humour coming out. At 66 years old, the singing great has no view of retirement or slowing. Whilst currently in the midst of organising a benefit concert for Syria following the devastating earthquake, Coughlan also plans on releasing new music in the new year.
“I’m just working on my next big project now, so I hope to present that in 2024. I start work on that in May – it’s nonstop, nonstop. God, what am I supposed to do? Like, sit around watching television? I don’t think so.”
The story continues for Mary Coughlan, the next chapter being Australia. Be sure to check out her touring dates and hear her life stories live.
Purchase tickets here.
For 24/7 crisis support, call Lifeline at 13 11 14.
This article was made in partnership with Mary Coughlan.
