At The Mid Hour of Night (2017) – Eleanor McEvoy

At The Mid Hour of Night is an old Irish love ballad written in the 1800s by Thomas Moore who was himself a poet, a sweet-voiced singer and accomplished musician. He is now best remembered for the lyrics of “The Minstrel Boy” and “The Last Rose of Summer”. Irish singer Eleanor McEvoy went to task to reinterpret some of Thomas Moore’s material for her album The Thomas Moore Project. Set in music these incredible lyrics are really pleasant to hear in Eleanor’s voice as part of the vast Irish folklore.

Eleanor McEvoy if you don’t know composed the song Only A Woman’s Heart, title track of A Woman’s Heart, the best-selling Irish album in Irish history. Only A Woman’s Heart will appear later in this music library’s project.

Wikipedia states: McEvoy’s life as a musician began at the age of four when she began playing piano. At the age of eight she took up violin. Upon finishing school she attended Trinity College, Dublin where she studied music by day and worked in pit orchestras and music clubs by night. McEvoy graduated from Trinity with an Honors Degree in music, and spent four months busking in New York City. In 1988, she was accepted into the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra where she spent four years before leaving to concentrate on songwriting.

She built up a following in clubs in Dublin with her three piece band…During a solo date in July 1992, she performed a little-known, self-penned song, “Only a Woman’s Heart”. Mary Black, of whose band McEvoy was a member, was in the audience and invited her to add the track to an album of Irish female artists. The album was subsequently titled A Woman’s Heart and the track was released as the lead single.

A few days before A Woman’s Heart was released, Tom Zutaut A & R from Geffen Records, who had previously signed Guns & Roses, Mötley Crüe, and Edie Brickell, offered McEvoy a worldwide recording deal after watching her perform at The Baggot Inn in Dublin.

At the mid hour of night when stars are weeping, I fly
To the lonely vale we lov’d when life shone warm in thine eye;
And I think that if spirits can steal from the region of air,
To revisit past scenes of delight; thou wilt come to me there,
And tell me our love is remember’d even in the sky.

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