Remembering Irish singer–songwriter Glen Hansard

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This message comes from National Geographic's Pompeii, Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston, a new series from the executive producers of Loki. Pompeii, Out of Time with Tom Hiddleston, is now streaming on Disney Plus and Hulu.

**David Bianculli** (0:14)
This is Fresh Air, I'm David Bianculli. Glen Hansard, the Irish singer-songwriter who got his start busking on the streets of Dublin, and later became famous for playing a Dublin street musician in the Irish film Once, died Wednesday from a motorcycle crash. He was 56 Irish President Catherine Connolly said Hansard would be remembered as one of Ireland's great singer-songwriters. Bruce Springsteen, who invited Hansard in 2013 to join him on stage during a show in Kilkenny, said, here on E Street, we are heartbroken. We met in Ireland many years ago, and he was nothing but a great musician, a good friend, and a generous and gracious man.
Glen Hansard formed the rock band The Frames in the 1990s, made his film debut in The Commitments playing guitarist Outspand Foster, and won an Oscar for co-writing the song Falling Slowly for the film Once, in which he starred as a struggling musician. The movie was later adapted into a Tony Award-winning musical.
Hansard went on to release a number of albums as a solo artist, and he was an advocate for the homeless, performing at an annual Dublin Christmas Eve busk to raise money for people at risk of homelessness. The low-budget indie Irish film that became an international success, titled Once, was written and directed by John Carney, who previously had been in Hansard's band The Frames. Hansard wrote the music for the movie. In 2008, Terry Gross spoke with Glen Hansard and with Czech singer Markéta Irglová, who co-starred in the film. Let's begin with the Oscar-winning song Falling Slowly, which they co-wrote.

**Terry Gross** (3:31)
Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová, Welcome to Fresh Air. Congratulations on the Oscar and all the success you've had with once.
You co-wrote Falling Slowly. Had you ever written a song together before writing for the film?

**Glen Hansard** (3:46)
No, that was actually the first song we wrote together, and it was one of those things where I'd been working on the song. And I wasn't really sure where I was going with it. All I had was the verse, and I had an idea for the chorus. And it was only when I sat down with Marr and I played her the idea, because I was talking about a harmony in the chorus, and she said, well, what if you take the lower one, or you take the higher one, and I'll take the lower one, and on the moment where it goes, we've still got time.
And for me, that was like the key of what made the song suddenly work. And then so I wrote the chorus with Marr, and then I really felt like we had a solid song in our hand, and it was something that I could give to John and feel confident with.

**Terry Gross** (4:29)
Glen, you pointed out that the movie was not written with you in mind as the performer, or with Marquetta in mind. Killian Murphy was supposed to be the star of the film, but he had a back out at the last minute. So I guess that's how you ended up being cast yourself.

**Glen Hansard** (4:49)
Yeah. I mean, what happened was that Killian was involved in the project all along, and Killian likes the frames, and so he was happy to sing my songs. But I think some of the songs that turned in, I think Killian probably felt a little bit... Killian's a great singer, but I think he felt a bit unprepared for some of the... Because John, the songs that John chose were some of the more dynamically, vocally challenging songs. Because I just gave John a bunch of songs, and he chose which ones he liked, which ones he didn't.
And I think Killian got a little bit sensitive, maybe possibly about the idea of singing a few of these songs and being able to sort of do them justice. And I remember making the suggestion that I was like, I'll change the keys, I'll make it work. Because for me, having the job of writing the songs, I just wanted to keep my gig. And so I was like, I'll change the keys, I'll do whatever Killian needs in order to make these songs work.
And I think possibly what happened was that Killian just got offered another job and then maybe took it. But once Killian pulled out, John was left in a very, I guess he was kind of stranded because the producers pulled out once Killian pulled out and then suddenly this project, which was about to film in a month or two, suddenly had no money. And this is kind of where things got exciting for us because John had already cast Marr, Killian had backed out on him, the producers had backed out on him, but he still had a crew booked and he still had a shoot day. And so he had to sort of figure out, do I drop this project and move on to another idea I had or do I try to make this work somehow? And we all sat down together, because I was involved in the project as a songwriter, we all sat down together and we sort of, I guess we all tried to figure out what to do. And I got really excited about the idea of making it, making the film as cheaply as possible. And it also meant that we could, you know, we figured out how to do it. So we wouldn't use lights. We'd shoot, instead of shooting, we were, you know, there was talk of originally shooting the film on film. Let's shoot it on DV. And let's, instead of, you know, instead of, you know, hiring the cameras, let's just buy two cameras. Let's just do it all hand-held. Let's just bring our own clothes. Let's do this, let's just do this thing super, super minimalist.