There are not enough words for love in English; Niall Connolly has found a way around our pretty language’s greatest deficit. With the songs of The Patience of Trees, Connolly has written a collection that explores all the sides of what it means to feel deeply: about a lover, about a child, about old friends, and so often, about life itself.
Connolly never deigns to suggest that love is easy, though it can and maybe should be simple. Connolly adeptly expresses this dichotomy on the album opener “It’s a Beautiful Life”. The song’s first verse celebrates the wild wonders of the world and alludes to the wife and child by his side (“my big love and my little love”); the second verse holds onto that beauty but introduces a tinge of grief (“it was something other than / a keening or a calling, I tried to understand”); the third and fourth verses fall into anger, regret, and despair (“been running ‘round for answers on a map I never made”). And yet, Connolly and his band structured the song to end once more with a soaring refrain of “It’s a beautiful life / most of the time” over swelling strings, all before fading into a cathedral-filling chorus. It is a song built to revelation, both lyrically and sonically, a pattern to which Connolly returns throughout The Patience of Trees.
Connolly finds so many angles from which to discuss what it means to be a human who loves and cares. On the almost-heartbreaking “We Don’t Have to Talk About It”, he sings to those of us on the edge and offers the power of presence. There is no assertion that it will get better – there’s often a hollowness to such claims – but he promises attention, a sharing of space. There is a strategy often used in therapeutic circles – especially those related to addiction – called “urge surfing”, during which a trusted person rides the wave with someone feeling some tidal pull. With “We Don’t Have to Talk About It”, Connolly embodies the other, the trusted person, and gifts the world a song for surfing the urge without crashing.
Ultimately, these are songs that champion compassion. At no point does Connolly provide answers to life’s problems, worries, or concerns, but he does repeatedly present the ideal that we can make our world and our lives better by living more openly, more lovingly. “I wanna be / patient as the trees / kind to everyone”, he intones on “Kind to Everyone”, and on “Everything’s Alright”, he offers room for openness when he sings, “in this house if you want to cry / you can cry anytime you like.” Connolly is trying to make room for everyone to acknowledge and accept that their feelings are allowed even if they don’t feel good. He contradicts the modern misinterpretation of stoicism and encourages listeners to experience life, which in itself represents the important of loving living.
And yet, the words that most define The Patience of Trees come from “Forgiveness is Hard.” “Nihilism’s easy / can be hard to resist” and “’have you hear the news my love? / all is emptiness’”, he hymns darkly. After dipping into twilight for a moment, strings swell, Connolly’s voice rises, and he chases the darkness away when he intones, “I still believe / love is king.” By the end of this record, it’s impossible not to agree.
Go buy The Patience of Trees and all of Niall’s other records. Join his Patreon. And please, please go see him sing these songs, if you’re so privileged as to be close enough.
