No time for life ‘all about me’

But he is no more certain whether he’ll effort another solo album than he is about reuniting with Irglova and The Swell Season.

“I’d love to think that we would do it again, but I could never say yes or no because the whole way Marketa and I played music together was very organic and very real. I couldn’t see her and I getting back together for any other reason than joy,” Hansard said.

That desire for authenticity drives him as a performer. Hansard is famous for his ability to tap into gut-wrenching soul, as he does in such songs as “Bird of Sorrow” and “The Storm, It’s Coming.” He worries about the moment when performing the most emotionally demanding songs becomes, well, just part of the job.

During an earlier leg of this tour, an exhausted Hansard realized he was on the verge of “dialing it in,” he said, something he had vowed never to do.

“The only real duty you have to your audience is to be present and to be as good as you can be,” he said. “As the great Springsteen said: You never have earned it. You are always earning it.”

And always evolving. Hansard’s professional track is long and varied. He began performing on the streets at age 13 before forming The Frames. He briefly dabbled in acting before his role in “Once” led to Irglova and their Academy Award-winning song “Falling Slowly.” The hallmark film was later made into a Tony Award-winning musical that’s now running on Broadway.

Returning to acting or becoming more involved in theater, however, is not in his sights.

“I don’t have any desire for those things,” he said.

And here Hansard lets us into his world view.

“I don’t have much time for a life that is all about me and my pocket and my clan. I just sort of feel like you are either serving some kind of greater good or you are not,” he said. “Having said that, I am a songwriter, so what am I doing? I’m not in social work ... but I kind of feel like, if I wasn’t a musician, it’s what I would be doing.”

As a performer, he said, he tries to find a way to use his music to connect people who