The Swell Season

You kick your ball and it goes over the back wall,

and then over the river and then over the next town

and into a place where you never imagined it would ever end up.

And that's the... I guess the metaphor for this song.

And there's just...

And there's, you know, there's four-fifths of you going,

"Oh, my God, I can't believe I kicked my ball that far."

It's amazing. And there's one... There's one, uh...

And I guess those four-fifths totally outweigh the one little part of you,

the one-fifth of you that's going, "I want my fucking ball back."

Do you want me to cut the top as well?

Just a little bit.

Thanks, Mar. You're brilliant.

Don't say that yet.

It's a great life we have, isn't it?

Yeah.

Marketa Irglova.

And the Oscar goes to...

Excuse me.

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova

for Falling Slowly from Once.

We made this film two years ago.

We shot it on two handicams.

It took us three weeks to make.

We made it for 100 grand.

We never thought we'd come into a room like this

and be in front of you people.

No matter how far out your dreams are, it's possible.

And, you know,

fair play to those who dare to dream, and don't give up.

And this song was written from a perspective of hope,

and hope at the end of the day connects us all

no matter how different we are.

And so thank you so much those who helped us along the way. Thank you.

We're about 30 kilometers from the ocean.

Those mountains, those mountains over there in the distance

are in the north of Ireland.

I've been making music so long that that's what I do.

I left school at 13. I don't do anything else, you know.

My ma said to me, "All your eggs are in one basket,

"you better do it." And I was like, "Well, yeah."

But in a way, I kinda feel that that gave me

some sort of, you know, very clear direction

because I just really wanted to be a musician.

I was really lucky I had a great headmaster at my...

The head teacher at my school was a DJ,

and so, I was in a lot of trouble in school.

He said to me one day, he said, "Look, you can tell me

"who played bass on Neil Young's Harvest,

"or you can tell me the track listing

"of Bob Dylan's Street Legal backwards

"but you can't tell me the square root of nine

"and so it's kinda, you're not much good to me.

"So, here's what I suggest..."

And he was great, he gave me the best deal.

He said, "Leave the school today,

"I'll make up some excuse because you're not allowed to leave until you're 15.

"I'll make up some excuse, leave the school,

"go get your guitar, and today,

"go into the city and start playing

"and in a year come back to me.

"And if in a year you've really enjoyed it

"and you've gone off and you've done it,

"it's become your life, then great.

"If you haven't, I'll take you back to school."

And I was so happy with that.

So I did. I left school that day and I went home

and I got my guitar and I said to my mother,

"Look, I'm gonna go busking.

"You know, I've left school."

And she was like, "What? You've what?"

It was... It was, you know... Loved it. Absolutely loved it.

I was completely on my path then.

I think inside of us all, it was some kind of wish

to escape to a whole other life.

You know, I've always been fascinated with this idea of fugue,

which is a medical condition where you... Where you

one day, you just change your name

and you move to another country

and you start a whole new life

and you never refer to the past.

And I'd always been fascinated with this idea.

And I think that in a very small way it was kind of what I did.

I just reinvented myself.

The Irglovas, the family, kind of became my other family

and I found myself kind of emotionally migrating to Czech.

You coming in?

No.

It's not so bad.

I think I was 13 and I was in school.

He didn't really have anywhere to live in Dublin at that time.

So he would just, kind of, go visit us in Czech.

F-sharp minor.

And while he was writing songs in the house,

you know, sometimes I'd come back from school

and I'd see him there composing or whatever.

So he'd play me his ideas and he'd then go,

"You know, do you want to try to sing harmony

"or play something on the piano?"

So I would and that's kind of how it started,

like, innocently, you know,

just me playing piano or singing harmony on his demos.

A.

B.

Please don't do that tonight.

C-sharp minor.

Stop!

You gotta sing with me.

B.

E, again.

B.

Subconsciously there was this thing in me, like,

you know, maybe one day I'll be old enough to, you know.

Which is kind of...

Which is funny 'cause that's exactly how it happened.

I did, kind of...

You know, at one point it became, I guess, okay.

And nobody made the decision, it just...

You know, it...

Our relationship got much intensified

by what we were sharing together with the music

and with the amount of time we were spending together,

because up until then it was... We never really saw each other.

But yeah, I fell in love with him instantly.

It's kind of mad, but it's true.

It's true.

You ready? No!

I'm not doing it alone.

Really, you won't do it? I won't do it alone.

Okay, come on. Ready?

Yeah. One, two, three.

Yeah?

No one's going to get offended around, are they?

No.

Come on!

I remember he kind of had the verse idea.

He was singing the, you know...

He was singing that and...

She starts singing this perfect third, I think it is, over, you know...

And that was lovely. I just thought it sounded really great.

You know, immediately it was like, "Wow, this is something," you know.

And I think I kind of started,

I went into what then became the chorus.

I, kind of, you know, started playing that chord progression.

And I think Glen sang that, you know...

That vocal.

Then I, the second time sang the higher one.

'Cause I think I was trying to say to her, like, "What if you try this one?"

But she said, "It sounds better with you singing it."

So, the fact that I'm singing the lead

and in that moment I go into the harmony and she takes the lead.

There was just something very unusual about it.

And my first thought after writing it was,

"Is it too romantic?"

I immediately kind of start questioning myself going, "Is it too romantic?"

Because it's very romantic, it's very open, it's very bare.

And I think up until that point

I'd been a little bit more guarded when I wrote songs.

Again, remember, I was in a rock band with a bunch of guys

who, you know, when you sing certain words

or you allow yourself to open up in certain ways

it's kind of maybe considered a bit vulnerable, you know.

Whereas for some reason, with Mar, vulnerable seemed very natural.

Yeah.