Go West

Album: Go West (1980)
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Songfacts®:

  • Composer Neil O'Connor said of "Go West" that it "started life as a funeral song for my Dad... not a sad song... a song of hope, remembrance and celebration of a life well lived."
  • Neil O'Connor is the brother of Hazel O'Connor of Breaking Glass fame. Although they hail from Coventry, their father was an Irish immigrant who served in the British Army, hence the line "...all you soldiers are young again somewhere." The title is a reference to going west to Ireland - or wherever old soldiers go when they die. Hazel sang the song at the funeral; from her 1981 autobiography it is clear that their parents' marriage was not made in Heaven, but Irish funerals are as Neil says a time for celebration rather than sorrow. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2

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