Clannad had played as a folk outfit for over ten years when they finally got an international hit with (Theme From) Harry’s Game in 1982.
The song was especially commissioned for the Yorkshire Television miniseries set during ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. The theme song was somewhat of a surprise hit, far eclipsing the TV series that it was written for.
That song marked a new beginning of sorts for the band. They had just signed to a major label and started a gradual change in direction towards more ambient material with lush layers of synthesiser and vocal harmony, as well as slowly edging closer to a rock expression over the course of the 1980s.
U2 certainly fell in love with that song, to such a degree that they chose it as the closing music (not opening, as Pol claims later) for their shows during their American tour of 1983. This certainly contributed to Clannad’s profile boost, and Clannad themselves took note and duly thanked them.
This mutual admiration, as well as their joint Irish backgrounds, made it easy for Clannad to reach out to Bono a bit later and ask if he was interested in collaborating with them on a song.
In a recent YouTube interview, Pol Brennan said “The Bono connection started when U2 heard Harry’s Game and we knew that it had affected them. U2 were starting their shows in the States with Harry’s Game and it was a huge opportunity for the band because there were so many enquiries about “what’s the music that the shows open to?” So we knew there was a musical appreciation there. And with him being from Dublin and us from Donegal… we reached out to him and the timing was for that record. It couldn’t have been better.”
The music in question was the track In A Lifetime – released on the album Macalla (1985). The song was written by the brothers Pol Brennan and Ciarán Brennan and produced by Steve Nye.
Bono was actually the first outside musician Clannad had ever recorded with. With those doors kicked down the floodgates opened somewhat, with several musicians adding guitars, saxophone and other musical parts to future albums, but for now this was still a pretty unique thing. It would also remain the highest profile guest artist, with Bono being their only guest ever to be featured on both the single sleeve and music video for the song they contributed on.
They had already written the new single when they asked Bono if he’d come in and add some vocals to it. Vocalist Moya Brennan recalls in a recent YouTube interview, “It was the first time we collaborated [with someone outside the band] really, and you couldn’t think of anybody better. It was fantastic. We had this backing track and he came into the studio on the first night, and it was done in two nights. We messed around with different ideas and had fun, and that night we went home and there was a huge electrical storm all night. It was really big, it wasn’t normal!”
The storm fuelled everybody’s imagination. Pol Brennan said, “I just remember staying up until 3-4 o’clock, writing!”
Hard to tell
Or recognise a sign
To see me through
A warning signFirst the thunder
Satisfied, if the past it will not lie
Then the storm torn asunder
The future you and I get blown away
In the storm
In a lifetime
“The next morning, everybody came in with lyrics of storms and lightning and everything,” Moya added, “and hence the song was born! It was fantastic looking at how Bono crafted the song himself and how he reached those notes and his singing and everything. Everything about it was fantastic. It was just amazing to watch. He just walked in the studio and improvised his vocal in 2 takes, making up a lot of lyrics to fit the song on the spot. The whole thing took about 10 minutes. It was one of the most remarkable things I’ve ever seen in a studio.”
In A Lifetime was released as the third single from Macalla on 13 January 1986. It charted in several territories, including United States, Ireland, UK, Italy and Brazil.
It is one of Clannad’s most successful songs and – if you count it among them – Bono’s most successful solo effort.
Any self-respecting single in the mid-80s would have an accompanying music video. The video for In A Lifetime was directed by Meiert Avis and shot in Clannad’s hometown of Gweedore in Donegal County.
The video is set in 1930’s Ireland and is based on the lives of local countryside folk of that time and old Irish traditions. Central to the video is a narrow country road which runs alongside a lake. Some shots show a young couple riding a scooter together, others show an old couple walking that same road. We also see several young children walking along that road, followed by a hearse.
And, of course, we have Moya Brennan and Bono standing on that very same road, singing the song. The landscape seems windswept, wet and foggy, but at the same time there is a beauty in it, and it does feel like you are seeing scenes from a lifetime, and examples of how the passing of time affect us all, thus fitting in with the themes of the song.
The song remains a central piece of work in Clannad’s back catalogue, and has been re-released and featured several times since its original release. It was included on the Macalla album, released on 21 October 1985, all of nine months after the single had first been released. This was a small eternity back then, but including the song on the album was still seen as an incentive for people to pick it up. It also gave the song a natural home in the discography.
It says a lot that when the band put out their Pastpresent compilation album in 1989, In A Lifetime was released as the first single to promote it with new artwork and b-sides – only four years after the first single release, and although the compilation had two great new tracks.
The song was also included on the US version of their 1990 studio album Anam, on a bonus CD of their 1996 studio album Lore, and can be found on every collection and live album released since the song’s creation (including Moya Brennan’s solo 2008 live album Heart Strings).
In 2020, In A Lifetime was chosen as the title of their 50th Anniversary career retrospective collections.
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