ON World Mental Health Day last Thursday, local singer/songwriter Dylon Jack O’Connor released Speak Up, a new song that deals with issues such as mental health and suicide.
The 26-year-old from Tullyvarraga works in the Texaco petrol station and his song is a response to the number of local deaths to suicide.
“Two and a half years ago I lost one of my mates, Jyles Espiritu, to it. I didn’t really write it after that, but six months later there was another death and a month later there was another one,” he said.
“There would have been five or six in the space of a year. When you’re constantly hearing those stories it’s kind of hard not to say your piece on it.
“With my mate the ending ‘you can talk about it, you can let it out’, I wish that had been the case, that he had talked about it rather than leaving us with the effect of it.”
He said that good intentions about being open about mental health sometimes fade and he wanted the song to be a reminder.
“The other reason that I wrote the song is that every time this happens, we always say we’re going to change and make sure we talk about it more often, we’ll be more open with each other,” he said.
“But that only happens for a week and everyone goes back to normal. The conversation comes back again when you hear of the next one.
“I wanted to have the song there because you can listen to it anytime.”
Working in a prominent business in a town, he is very well aware of the pain that many people have gone through over the last couple of years.
“That’s where it stems from, being surrounded by all these stories all the time, I don’t think there’s anyone in Shannon who hasn’t been affected in some way, shape or form,” he said.
“Shannon is one of those places where everyone knows everyone. While I mightn’t have been very close to any of the others I’d have known them from the shop or they’d have been mates of mates or whatever.”
Thursday, October 10 was World Mental Health Day and a fitting day for the song to be released.
“I wrote it in April of last year and I knew I wanted to release it on a mental health day, but I didn’t have it recorded for last year,” he said. “We spent about 24 hours in the studio working on it, three eight hour sessions.”
It’s a long time working on a single song. Does he tend to be a perfectionist?
“I suppose I can be. I can be quite a long time getting songs out there because I’ll be nitpicking,” he said.
“The song I wrote in 25 minutes though. There are certain ones that just pour out of you, when you are really feeling something it is very easy to write.
“But we wanted to make sure that the sound encapsulated the whole meaning of the song, we were pretty particular about how we wanted it to come out and I’m pretty proud of the result.”
He is also quite pleased with the reaction from listeners.
“The feedback I’ve received so far ha been wonderful to be honest with you,” he said.
Dylon Jack has more songs on the way and he will be playing live at Dolan’s in the coming months.
“I don’t know if I’ll be releasing any more this year, but there are four or five singles in the pipeline and I’m in the midst of organising my first ever headline show for next year,” he said.
“We’ve been confirmed for Dolan’s but we don’t know dates yet. Hopefully it’ll be February or March of next year for my first headline show. If we manage to get that it’d be wonderful.”
He acknowledges that Speak Up is a bit different from much of his other songs.
“Most of my music is quite electronic but with this one I wanted to have a different tone, I didn’t think electric music would work with what I was trying to say in this song. James Blake would be another influence, and Dermot Kennedy. This track came out of a lot of listening to Dermot Kennedy,” he said.
Dylon Jack hopes the song will have an impact on the community. “I’m hoping that people will listen to the song and spread the message,” he said.
Owen Ryan has been a journalist with the Clare Champion since 2007, having previously worked with a number of other publications in Limerick, Cork and Galway. His first book will be published in December 2024.