All My Heart

I was lying in bed one night, scrolling rather lifelessly on my phone, when I came across a video a friend had shared. It was from a taped performance at the Regional Cultural Centre in Donegal, Ireland featuring Séamus McGuire lovingly playing his fiddle and Steve Cooney tenderly accompanying on his guitar. The pair had started playing a centuries-old love song from the Petrie Collection of Irish Music called “With Her Dog and Her Gun.” As I laid there listening for the first time, something inside me stirred. I could feel my heart begin to swell. Something about this song was immediately captivating and timeless and simple and easy and familiar—like I had known it all my life. I went to bed with this recording running wild in my head, with fragments of it endlessly echoing every corner of my tired body. The next day, I listened again—perhaps to see if the magic I felt the night before was still there—and again, my heart swelled. Soon enough, I realized I couldn’t get this tune out of my head! I became obsessed with it—and the striking beauty of this performance in particular—and after a while, I felt as if it was bursting my heart wide open in a way my heart hadn’t been opened before. No other melodies or themes or songs that I had been listening to or composing myself had moved me with the magnitude that this one had. It had ingrained itself deep within me, and I was completely under its spell. Within such a short time, this beautiful Irish melody had entirely consumed me and all my heart.