WYVERN LINGO IN NEW PROJECT
AFTER coming to the attention of Janis Ian and recording one of the icon’s songs, Wyvern Lingo have now released a live acoustic version of their song ‘Rapture’, available on Spotify and all platforms.
The Bray band took part in Ian’s ‘Better Times Will Come’ project, joining 100 artists in creating covers of the song.
Calling Wyvern Lingo her ‘current favourite trio’, Janis Ian said that when she first began corresponding with the band, they were recording their newest album ‘Awake You Lie’, due out in February, and asked if she could wait until they were finished.
Last August, the band got an email directly from the legendary singersongwriter, asking if they would be interested in taking part in the project.
‘What followed was a back and forth of fascinating emails about song-writing and playing, and of course we jumped at the chance to do our own version of her beautiful and poignant as ever “Better Times Will Come”,’ said the band in a statement.
‘Corresponding with them ( Wyvern Lingo) is full of tidbits like “We did finally manage to record it on our houseboat studio in Berlin”, or the trick question “So how do you pronounce Caoimhe?’ wrote Ian. ‘ There are moments in this video that actually give me chills - when the harmonies first
begin, when the drummer sings a high lick I’d never even attempt.’
Janis Ian wrote the song ‘Better Times Will Come’ at her Florida home in March. Her Better Times project is designed to help artists who have been hit financially through the pandemic.
‘Better times, better times will come,’ the lyrics include. ‘ When this world learns to live as one, oh, better times will come.’
After touring was suspended in midMarch, Ian quarantined at her home. ‘My wife and I had been watching in horror as the government of our state and our country deliberately ignored all the warning signs of a pandemic, and we decided to stay self-isolated as much as possible,’ she said.
‘And then, John Prine died,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know John well, but I’d known him since his first time at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. I’d spoken with him at the Cambridge Folk Festival last year, I think, and had tremendous respect for him. John’s death hit me very hard. Unlike many of my colleagues, he’d survived not only his own demons, but illness after illness. It seemed like he’d go on for years.’
She was doing her laundry, when the song hook came to her. She sat down and wrote the song within two hours.
‘ The only other song I’ve written that came that fast and that completely was ‘Stars’, still my most covered song though not the most widely known.’
Meanwhile, Wyvern Lingo’s ‘Rapture’, is a song about overcoming long-distance. It’s about overwhelming, life-altering love, and realising that the knowledge of the very existence of someone is enough to comfort and sustain you throughout the times apart.