Irish born singer-songwriter Megan O’Neill has released her stunning cover of ‘Fairytale of New York’. O’Neill takes this beloved Christmas song and strips it back to create a haunting and moving rendition that highlights the lyrics of the song.

I caught up with O’Neill to chat about the immaculate cover, her songwriting and her recently released album, ‘Getting Comfortable with Uncertainty’. O’Neill also gave some solid advice for aspiring musicians.

“I suppose, it’s a brave one to cover. It’s a really gorgeous song that a lot of people love, myself included and so I was thinking, is this a good idea? But it’s just one of those amazing songs that I feel the message of the song can be interpreted in loads of different ways. That’s what we tried to do with our version. We just tried to interpret the story of the song in a different way, in a different mood.”

“When you actually sit down and you read those lyrics without the revved up production that’s in The Pogues version. When you actually sit down and read the lyrics. It’s really sad. It’s a song about failed relationships and broken dreams and unfulfilled potential and it’s quite a sad message in the story. I felt there’s another way you could interpret the story sonically, and that’s really what I wanted to do. Also, I think, a lot of time if you are going to do a cover, it’s important to do it uniquely in your own way that’s not trying to just recreate the original but trying to do something that’s your own.”

O’Neill’s voice is the focal point that carries the song’s emotional tone and she achieves this perfectly without overdoing it – the result is a time stopping, and a unique listening experience.

“Yeah, I didn’t really feel pressure. I think I have an ability with my voice. It took me years to figure out that I had [the ability] to portray emotion quite well, and it was something that for years, and I think this is the thing with all singers, you’re not really entirely sure how to use your voice or where the best elements of it are and that was kind of it for me. It was only when I started to actually sing less and pull it back and allow the natural tones and the natural emotion to come out that I realized, oh, I can do something here. [with ‘Fairytale of New York] It wasn’t really a pressure that I felt. It was just I wanted that emotion of the lyrics to come out. So I worked quite hard for that to come through my voice rather than it be something that was over sung. I wanted it to be vulnerable and close and haunting and like you were in the room with me really”

“I’m such a lover of stories and all the way through when I’ve been writing and releasing my own songs, the story has to be really important, it has to be the central point of the song. So I really zone in on lyrical content, and the story, and the message that I’m trying to get across in that story. It’s funny because when you’re recording songs, you can be in the room and there can be a bit that’s a little bit out of tune or a little bit too fast or a little bit too slow or you’re a little bit off tempo with the music. But if the emotion is there, those are the takes that I always keep. Those are the parts of the song that I always keep because that’s more important to me. It’s more important that the emotion comes across than the song is absolutely perfect as a recording.”

O’Neill worked with producer Mark Caplice on the track. Caplice and O’Neill have worked together before, and she explained to me how their friendship made creating a moving and vulnerable rendition of the track more comfortable.

“ Mark and I are very dear friends and we’ve worked on a lot of stuff together. So when I wanted to do a Christmas cover, Mark and I had been discussing which ones that I might do and what could work and he’s just got such an amazing ear. He’s such an incredible musician that always working with him, particularly because we’re such good friends, is easy, I don’t mind being vulnerable in the room with him. I don’t mind messing things up to then get them right at the end. It’s a very relaxed atmosphere and it always ends up being a great product at the end of the day.”

O’Neill’s songs have received great attention over the past year – including her recent single ‘Ireland’, which hit over 400,000 views on social media during release month and her album ‘Getting Comfortable with Uncertainty’ hit #1 on the iTunes singer/songwriter charts in the UK and Ireland. We discussed the whirlwind of a year and how 2021 brought a variety of ups and downs for the artist.

“Yeah, it’s been a weird and wonderful year. It’s been odd to have all these things going on and have them all going on, still stuck at home for a lot of it. You know, usually, when you release an album and you’ve got stuff happening, you’re able to tour with it and I wasn’t really able to tour this album before its release. I was able to tour it in September, October, November this year, thank God. I just got in the window..it was fantastic. Throughout the past two years it’s been good to me and also been challenging on a lot of levels but it has been great that the songs have been reaching more people and I’m glad that the album is out there now because we’ve delayed the release with Covid. So there’s been a lot of great things I think, for everybody pluses and minuses of the last two years.”

Similar to many artists, O’Neill’s return to live shows was a fantastic source of joy and anxiety. The return to shows brought pressure on artists to just jump back on the horse when they hadn’t performed in over a year. 

“Yeah, terrifying. My first run of shows were in Germany in September and I was absolutely riddled with anxiety and stress before I was due to go and I’m not that type of person. I’ve never really suffered from anxiety in my life. I’d always get a bit nervous before shows. But this was a totally different thing and the day before we were due to fly I was just a complete mess. Then once I got there and I got to perform, I was nervous but once I got in the swing of it, I was fine. But it’s been so long so there is an anxiety about getting back up and doing it again. There’s obviously the nerves with performing but there’s also a feeling of we all should have gotten better over the course of this pandemic, as in that’s the feeling. I’m not saying we should have. I’m saying people feel pressure to be coming out with better songs, being a better musician, being a better songwriter, like coming out of this pandemic almost as a new artist. That’s an awful lot of pressure. This has been a difficult time to be creative for a lot of people. It’s been a difficult time to be motivated. So I think there’s a lot of layers to what musicians are feeling going back into performing, myself included. I found it amazing to be playing in front of crowds again, but there was a lot of anxiety around it from my point of view and also from people in an audience not necessarily wanting to be in a crowded space. So it’s a difficult time and I don’t think it’s going to change very soon.”

‘Getting Comfortable with Uncertainty’ is a striking and impactful album. O’Neill packs a serious emotional punch with the album which is filled with glorious indie/country-toned songs and wonderful, meaningful ballads. I wondered if she found it daunting or exposing pouring so much of herself into her songs.

“Oh god yeah. I think it’s kind of a blessing and a curse because I am a songwriter that writes about my own life. I write about what I’m feeling at the time and you can write those songs and they end up being good songs that you fall in love with and then you’re like, oh no [ I ] have to release that, people are gonna know that side of me. So there is a vulnerability in it. But I think it’s important to be real and be true with what we do as artists because we’re all human beings. We’re all living similar lives obviously with differences, but, if I’ve felt heartbroken, if I felt lonely, if I’ve felt removed from my homeland, if I’ve felt frustrated with my career, the reality is that most other people have felt those emotions. So it’s important to be truthful with the stories that I tell because people will relate to them. They’ll relate to something that I’ve felt and that I go through because we’re all humans at the end of the day. It can be a bit daunting, particularly when people ask you about a very specific one. There’s some songs coming out in 2022 that will be pretty vulnerable for me so those might be challenging ones to discuss. But yeah, I think it’s important to be real with the messages you’re putting out.”

‘Time in a Bottle’, the bonus track off the new album featured on episode one of the hit Netflix TV Show Firefly Lane. One week later, O’Neill performed the song live on the RTE Late Late Show – reaching an audience of approximately two million and the single charted that same weekend in Ireland across all genres. ‘Time in a Bottle’ was the highest new entry on the Irish Homegrown Charts at the end of February and playlisted by RTE Radio 1. This was a crazy unexpected experience for O’Neill.

“Yeah, it was. We were again, in the height of lockdown and it was February this year when it came out, and I didn’t at all know how it would be received or what kind of feedback there would be, but people loved it and again it was one of those brave songs to cover. It was a song loved by very many, and I grew up listening to that song. That’s one of my mam’s favourite songs. So it was an odd one to take on. But again, the story and the message of that song is so powerful and it’s so relatable. It’s so emotional when you listen to those lyrics. So I wanted the story to be at the forefront.”

“I was approached by Firefly Lane by the creators of the show, because they wanted a female version of Jim Croce’s ‘Time in a Bottle’. They didn’t really give too much direction or what way to do it or how it was going to go and I did my take on it, again, that was produced by Mark Caplice. We did our take on it, and they loved it and it ended up on the show. But it was one of those things, you know, February this year, it was the height of lockdown and everyone’s sitting down to watch this Netflix series and I’m just sitting down to watch it with everybody else and then listening to myself on it, so it was very surreal. I’m so glad that people really love that version and it was a wonderful thing to have happen, particularly again in a year where we weren’t leaving our houses.”

The singer-songwriter’s video for ‘Ireland’ got picked up and shared by none other than Olivia Newton-John. With such well-deserved recognition under her belt, I asked O’Neill what advice she would give to somebody starting a career in music. 

“That’s a hard one. Be careful who you decide to work with, as in who you decide to be on your team, as a manager or an agent or whatever else. Those relationships are really hard to get right. But it’s really important to get them right. I know a lot of people, myself included who have had bad experiences on that front and it just, you know, it can destroy everything. We all get into music for the pure love of music, then all of a sudden it becomes a career and it becomes a business and it becomes a job and that can really challenge your love of it and challenge your attitude towards it which is hard. So I think being careful who you decide to work with, and also trust your gut because loads of people are going to tell you that you’re not good enough or you can’t do it or it’s too competitive or whatever. You’re going to hear “NO” way more than “YES” but your gut is usually right. Doing something that means a lot to you and that feels, like I was saying earlier authentically you, there will be people that will relate to that. Not everyone’s gonna like what you do but there will be people that will relate to what you do if it’s authentically you. So trusting your gut is important. Not even half the world is gonna like what you do. The whole point is having a niche market or having a select group of people that love what you do, and that can be a very sustainable career.”

O’Neill is an eloquent singer-songwriter who pours everything into her compelling tunes and her rendition of ‘Fairytale of New York’ is a fine example of this. Her moving vocals evoke a deep sense of loneliness and melancholy within the song and her sombre tones easily stir emotion with the listener. O’Neill is certainly an artist to keep an eye on. This singer has exciting plans ahead as she told me what next year has in store for her.

“Well, next year there is going to be a single coming out every eight weeks from January onwards. So next year will be a lot about releases and my music is going in a completely new direction, which I’m very, very excited about. It’s much more kind of into the pop realm. So I’m really excited for those new songs to come out and there’ll be two EPs. The first one will be in March-time. The second one will probably be in September/October. It’s not fully decided yet. So it’ll be mainly a year focused on releases because none of us really know where live is going to be next year, unfortunately. There are a few shows in the UK in February and then after that, we’re just gonna wait and see how the touring climate is. There’s going to be some songs I’ve written with other artists as well coming out which I’m really excited about. So just keeping creative. Keeping it going.”

Stream Megan O’Neill’s version of ‘Fairytale of New York’ below 

Author: Danu