Caught in the Carousel

Séan McCann

By Alex Green

Sean McCann

"We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body," Emerson once said. Keeping that sentiment in mind, Séan McCann is surely a man who's familiar with the feeling of an expanding heart. Ever since the birth of the first of his two children, the Canadian singer/songwriter and frontman for the beloved Newfoundland outfit Great Big Sea, has been beaming with parental pride.

Sean McCann

McCann's first solo album, Lullabies For Bloodshot Eyes is a love letter to both fatherhood and family. But more than just a paternal victory lap, the album is also a moving mediation about mortality, responsibility and human fragility. A stirring nine-song collection, on Lullabies McCann has never sounded more impassioned. "Somewhere (For Fin)" and "Wish" find the singer missing his firstborn son and wife as he returns to the rigors of the road, while the gentle "Don't Cry (for Keegan)" beautifully captures the moment of the birth of his second son. Elsewhere, "Hold Me Steady" is a romping barroom rocker; the affecting "Peace Among The Bones" sounds uncannily like Peter Gabriel and "Gone Tomorrow" is a haunting elegy about how short life can be.

CITC caught up with McCann at home in St. John's, getting ready to hit the road with Great Big Sea.

Sean McCann

Caught In The Carousel: Are the bloodshot eyes of the album's title both a reference to late night parenting as well as a farewell to the bloodshot nights of the past?

Séan McCann: Before I grew up I owned a party pad in old St. John's. I set up a bar in the basement and painted everything dark red. I called it "The Bucket of Blood." It never closed.

CITC: Thoreau said that, "Every child begins the world again." Did the birth of your children mark the beginning of a new world for you?

SM: "World" is probably too small a word. I'm making my way through a whole new Galaxy. And that's cool. I was getting bored with my old world anyway.

Sean McCann

CITC: How has being a parent affected you artistically?

SM; I feared it might be a deterrent, but my output has actually increased dramatically. My family has been a great inspiration. I feel like I have finally found my true voice. The writing hasn't stopped.

CITC: This is a beautiful song cycle about parenting--did the songs come over a short period of time?

SM: It started with the birth of Keegan four years ago and continues to this day. This will be the first of many installments. I'm going to be Dad forever.

Sean McCann

CITC: A child is a blank slate that's just waiting to soak up information their parents give them--does this terrify you?

SM: Absolutely. Living on a bus with ten dudes can really hone your profanity skills. It takes me a few days to decompress when I get home. I've had to come up with pretty imaginative definitions for some "linguistical accidents." One must always mind one's tongue...and every single thing else one does.

CITC: The album opens and closes with songs for Finnegan and Keegan—what did you have in mind with this sequencing?

SM: Seeing a new human come into the world is very life affirming. We all start out so helpless...so pure...and then life happens to us. The sequence was intended to mimic "the cycle." For every beginning there is an end. For every end, there is a beginning.

Sean McCann

CITC: Do you visualize a day when you can play music onstage with your kids?

SM: We've already started a band called "Big Daddy and the Bubble Blowers." Coming soon to a bathtub near you.

CITC: How will you handle the day when one of your kids says, Dad, what's the old black rum?

SM: Already happened. I told them it was "medicine for big people." It's Finnegan's favourite song.

Sean McCann

Lullabies For Bloodshot Eyes is out now:
www.greatbigsea.com
www.greatbigsean.com