Phil Coulter: Irish Songwriter

Coulter is from Derry in Northern Ireland where his father was a policeman; one of few Catholic constables in the force. He grew up with his two brothers and two sisters.

Coulter's father, also called Phil, encouraged music in the house. He played the fiddle whilst his wife played the upright piano. The younger Coulter recalls this piano, made by Challen, as "the most important piece of furniture in the house". "I always stayed away from the fiddle, having inflicted enough pain on my family with the piano," he laughed.

Coulter confesses that he came close to abandoning the piano at an early age. "The truth is I hated the piano at first. I'd love to say I was a natural but I wasn't. I hated playing it and I hated my music teacher. My father, who was a canny man, told me, 'We have to scrimp and save to pay for these lessons, you might as well give them up.' "It wasn't long before I gravitated back to the piano, trying to play the songs that I was listening to on the radio. I always wondered what my left hand was supposed to be doing though. But after two or three years at St. Columb's College I began thinking of the piano as an extension of myself."

One of Coulter's most popular songs, "The Town I Loved So Well", deals with the embattled city of his youth, filled with "that damned barbed wire" during the Troubles. 'It is the one I anguished most over, the one which had to earn respect and perhaps the most auto-biographical tune I have ever written' "The roots of that song go very, very deep, it took time for it to win respect and integrity. That song defines an era and a place that is very dear to my heart."

Phil Coulter was awarded the prestigious Gold Badge from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) in October 2009, his other achievements are extraordinary:

• 23 Platinum Discs
• 39 Gold Discs
• 52 Silver Discs
• 2 Grand Prix Eurovision awards
• 5 Ivor Novello Awards
• Songwriter of the Year
• A Grammy Nomination
• A Meteor Award
• A National Entertainment Award
• A Rose d'or d'Antibes
• 3 American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers awards

In my memory I will always see
The town that I have loved so well
Where our school played ball by the gasyard wall
And we laughed through the smoke and smell.
Going home in the rain running up the dark lane
Past the jail and down beside the fountain
Those were happy days in so many many ways
In the town I loved so well.

In the early morn the shirt factory horn
Called women from Creggan, the Moor and the Bog
While the men on the dole played a mothers role
Fed the children and then trained the dog
And when times got tough, there was just about enough
But they saw it through without complaining
For deep inside was a burning pride
In the town I loved so well.

There was music there in the Derry air
Like a language that we could all understand
I remember the day when I earned my first pay
as I played in a small pickup band
There I spent my youth and to tell you the truth
I was sad to leave it all behind me
For I'd learned about life and I'd found a wife
In the town I loved so well.

But when I returned how my eyes were burned
To see how a town could be brought to it's knees
By the armoured cars and the bombed out bars
And the gas that hangs on to every breeze
Now the army's installed by that old gasyard wall
And the damned barbed wire
gets higher and higher
With their tanks and guns
Oh my God, what have they done
To the town I loved so well.

'The Town I Loved So Well' is one of the most recorded Irish songs. Luke Kelly, Ronnie Drew (Dubliners) recored it and also, Paddy Reilly had a hit with it in 1971 and it went to No. 5, and stayed in the charts for fifteen weeks. It was also voted the best song of the millennium on a radio poll.

Phil Coulter suggests the reason for the popularity of the song, was how well it defined the situation in the North of Ireland for the many people affected by the Troubles. And as people became more aware of the situation, the song was regarded as a sort of anthem. Former US President Bill Clinton expressed his fondness for it and Phil Coulter sang it for him in the Guild Hall in Derry, which gave it even more publicity.

Coulter says the song certainly isn't nationalist as he maintains the last thing we needed was another rebel song. The line 'Oh My God what have they done' refers to what the violence and bombs of both sides have done to the town he loved so well.