Glen Hansard, who died on July 29, 2026, created a beautiful body of music and film, as the author remembers a brief encounter with the artist.
Almost two decades ago, my future wife and I made our first trip to Ireland, a place where we each had ancestors. As part of my preparation, I rewatched the recent movie Once (2007), starring Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová as two struggling musicians in Dublin. Although Hansard, born April 21, 1970, was already known by many for his work with The Frames, like many in the U.S., I first fully discovered him from Once (although had seen his work in movie The Commitments previously). From Once, a sweet love story with a beautiful ending, he won an Oscar for the song “Falling Slowly,” which he wrote with Markéta Irglová, his co-star and Swell Season partner.
Anyway, as we boarded our airplane to Ireland from New York City, who ended up next to me in line but Glen Hansard, waiting to board with a guitar on his back. I made a brief joke about hoping he was being treated well, and we exchanged brief pleasantries. It was a brief encounter, but a nice one, and started off making the trip a little extra special. I last saw him at the airport in Dublin near the baggage claim, walking through the airport with his guitar on his back, much like he looked the last time we see him inOnce.
That brings us to the sad news this morning that Hansard died in a motorcycle crash in Dublin early this morning, July 29, 2026, at the age of 56. He leaves behind his wife, a young child, friends, family, and many fans. His distinctive voice lost to us, but his music (and film work) will live on.
In addition to his wonderful original work, Hansard was known also as a great interpreter (including some great Springsteen covers) and duet partner. Even after he became famous, he was often caught busking on the streets of Dublin.
He seemed to truly love music and brought that joy to his listeners. Below he sings Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” with Irglová.
“Yeah, when that fog horn blows / I will be coming home.” RIP.
Margo Price’s new EP “Days of Unrest” includes several timely protest songs, including Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos).”
Margo Price has released a 9-track EP entitled Days of Unrest, featuring five timely covers of protest songs as well as three original instrumentals as well as Price’s song “Can’t Stand Still.” The protest songs include the Mexican folk song “De Colores,” Bob Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm,” Blaze Foley’s “Oval Room,” and Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos).” On the Guthrie song, Joan Baez joins Price and the Memphis Mariachi.
We previously have written about how Guthrie was inspired to write “Deportee” by a 1948 plane crash that killed 28 undocumented immigrants. In the case of the album, Price sings “Deportee” as part of a statement about our current times and treatment of immigrants in the U.S. These are songs have meant a lot to her for a long time (such as playing “Deportee” at Farm Aid 40), as her embrace of protest music is not something new for Price.
Margo Price recently explained to Salon about her choice to include “Deportee,” a song she has been singing for some time, on Days of Unrest: “[I]t needs to be sung and we cannot look away from what is happening right now. We cannot act like this is normal. I mean, I think a lot of people think that I’m radical because I’m talking about this stuff. But I think 20-30 years from now, we’re going to say, ‘Why are more people not concerned about the way that folks are being treated right now. It’s inhumane.”
Check out Price’s cover of “Deportee” with Joan Baez in the official lyric video, which includes current events.
Part of the proceeds from sales of Days of Unrest will go to The Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project, which helps immigrants facing detention and deportation. The members of Memphis Mariachi are José Patiño, Eniel Pineda, Alejandro Quijano, Martín Granados, José Pérez, and Juan Viamontes.
Days of Unrest is available at Amazon and other locations. Leave your two cents in the comments.
Those that remember the American Bicentennial in 1976 recall a national celebration that contrasts sharply with the America of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Americans celebrate the 250th anniversary of the adoption and signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026. But for those of us old enough to remember the United States celebration of the 200th anniversary in 1976, the current semiquincentennial celebration seems to pale in comparison to the 1976 Bicentennial.
In 1976, you could not escape hearing about the Bicentennial. In 2026, most of what we hear about the 250th celebration seems related to controversy and cancellations rather than celebrations. There are books about the American Bicentennial celebration on Amazon (and that is not counting things like Bicentennial cookbooks published in many communities in 1976). I don’t think there are many, if any, 250th celebration cookbooks, and it is hard to imagine a very long book for future generations to read about our current efforts to celebrate.
Why Did the Bicentennial Feel Different From America’s 250th Birthday?
What happened to our celebration? There are a number of reasons one may point to for the disappointment with the current anniversary, including the divisions on social media and other forms of entertainment that all make it more difficult for uniting Americans around anything. Maybe we lost something about our connections to our communities that fifty years ago did much of the 1976 planning. Also, it is easier to say “Bicentennial” than “Semiquincentennial,” so how do you celebrate something you can’t remember the name of?
Some argue that the government failed to plan properly. Or maybe the current White House resident hijacked the holiday to make it more about himself, making the Semiquincentennial partisan versus the more (but not completely) bipartisan Bicentennial.
So, instead of celebrating, for many, the this year’s anniversary is more for acknowledging the faults of the country and thinking of ways to heal. For many, they will have their barbeques and fireworks, but it will be just like any other Fourth of July.
Maybe 200 seems like a more important number than 250, or maybe people do not feel like celebrating. Yet,in 1976 we also also faced inflation, gas shortages, political scandals, and other issues but still found a way to reflect and party.
Maybe, a failure of commercialism is partly to blame. Whether good or bad, fewer media sources and less product access allowed companies in 1976 to create more focused marketing around the Bicentennial that continuously reminded us of the celebration. All of your favorite products, including soda and beer, included special versions labeled for the Bicentennial.
In our house, we bought Bicentennial medallions off television, giving them as gifts. I also remember drinking a lot of 7-Up to collect the Bicentennial cans, collecting a can representing each of the fifty states. When you stacked up the fifty cans they revealed an image of Uncle Sam.
Yes, today, you may buy 250 shirts and hats on Amazon or at your local store. I bought a shirt at Lowes. But anyone can make a shirt and sell it online these days. For better or worse, there is no official merchandise that any of us would recognize, in contrast to the well-recognized licensed Bicentennial symbol.
The Uniting Thread of the Bicentennial Minute
Finally, today’s more fractured entertainment universe means we do not have the daily reminders of the anniversary we had in 1976. In the mid-1970s, for more than a year, we watched the Bicentennial Minutes, remembered by most Baby Boomers and members of Generation Jones (like me). Every night on TV there was a favorite actor or personality who would tell us an important event that happened 200 years ago that night.
As July 4 and the Declaration signing approached, each episode reminded us of the approaching holiday. With no Netflix, no cell phones, no streaming options, and mostly just network TV, the Bicentennial Minutes were a communal event.
The Bicentennial Minutes ran for more than two years, beginning on July 4, 1974 and running through December 31, 1976. The last episode featured President Gerald R. Ford.
During that time, as a kid, I took out my blue tape recorder every night (audio only, we did not have VCRs in those days), waiting between CBS shows for a few minutes before 9pm. As the Bicentennial Minute started, I pushed the Record/Play button to record the audio off of the TV. We did not have the Internet so it was the only way to preserve the important history lessons we received every night on TV.
Here is actor Darren McGavin on April 2, 1976.
I don’t recall how many I recorded on my blue tape recorder. And I don’t know how often I ever listened to the audio cassette. I do not even remember what happened to those cassette tapes.
But creating the recordings seemed important to do at the time. It was an American thing to do.
Keith Whitley died on May 9, 1989, leaving us with a demo of a great love song to his wife, “Tell Lorrie I Love Her.”
On July 1, 1955, Jackie Keith Whitley — who would become known as the country music singer-songwriter named Keith Whitley — was born in Ashland, Kentucky. Whitley died at the age of 33 on May 9, 1989, reportedly from alcohol poisoning. But in his short life he left behind a lot of great songs such as his 1988 country hit recording of “When You Say Nothing at All.” One of my favorite Whitley songs, though, only survived as a demo and was first released after Whitley’s death in 1990 on Greatest Hits, “Tell Lorrie I Love Her.”
The Lorrie in “Tell Lorrie I Love Her” was Whitley’s wife, country singer Lorrie Morgan, who had struggled to help Whitley battle his alcoholism before being left a widow. The song is a strong statement of love with the singer recounting the ways he would try to tell his love about his feelings even in the face of death, whether in the desert or lost on the ocean.
Reportedly, he recorded the demo in his living room around two years before he died.
Jesse Whitley’s Performance of His Dad’s Song
Morgan and Whitley had been married in 1986, about two and a half years before his death. Whitley adopted Lorrie’s daughter, and the couple had their own child, Jesse Keith Whitley in June 1987.
Several years ago, Jesse brought his mom on stage to sing his father’s song. In the video below, you can see how moved Morgan was to hear her husband’s song from her son.
Relation to “Tell Laura I Love Her”?
The title of “Tell Lorrie I Love Her” reminds one of the 1960s hit song, “Tell Laura I Love Her,” which was written by Heff Barry and Ben Raleigh and became a hit in 1960 for Ray Peterson in the U.S. and for Ricky Valence in the U.K. Like “Tell Lorrie I Love Her,” the song is about someone facing death trying to get a message to his love.
Yet, where the “Lorrie” song imagines possible tragic scenarios, the “Laura” song is a specific story, recounting a teenager who wants to earn money for a wedding ring so he enters a stock car race, where he is killed. I do not know the extent that “Tell Laura I Love Her” inspired Whitley, but in some ways his song is the adult counterpart.
There are not many professional covers of Whitley’s “Tell Lorrie I Love Her,” perhaps because the song was so personal between two singers. But if you go on YouTube, you will find numerous amateur covers of the song. Apparently the song that Whitley never professionally recorded still resonates with fans. Rolling Stone lists it as one of Whitley’s ten greatest love songs.
In June 2026 at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center, U2’s performance of “City of Blinding Lights” rebutted a recent comment at the White House.
On June 18, 2026, U2 performed “City of Blinding Lights” at the opening of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago. The song has long been a favorite of President Obama, who used the song as his entrance theme when he announced his candidacy for the presidency in 2007, before his acceptace speech at the 2008 Democtratic Convention, and at other events. The performance at the center this week put a bow on the history of the song and its connection to the Obamas, including a subtle rebuttal of a recent hateful comment at a Trump White House event.
U2 released the song from How to Dismantale An Atomic Bomb as a single in 2005. But Bono and the band had been working on the song since 1997. Eventually, part of the inspiration for the song came when U2 was playing in the United States following the September 11 attacks in 2001. Perhaps because of the long writing process, though, one may take different things out of the song, such as the inspiration found by former President Obama.
I’ve seen you walk unafraid; I’ve seen you in the clothes you made; Can you see the beauty inside of me? What happened to the beauty I had inside of me?
And I miss you when you’re not around; I’m getting ready to leave the ground.
Oh, you look so beautiful tonight, In the city of blinding lights.
Time, time, time, time, time; Won’t leave me as I am; But time won’t take the boy out of this man.
The U2 performance this week at the Obama Prsidential Center added a new layer to the song. As the song ended, Bono added lines acknowledging the presence of four former presidents as well as a faith in democracy. In closing, without mentioning the current president — or the recent event held at the White House where one of the president’s guests insulted the former first lady — Bono rebutted the hate with a lovely tribute to Michelle Obama, ending with the chorus of the Beatle’s “Michelle” (with Barack Obama mouthing the words too).
“In the company of Jackknife Lee, 46, 42 and 43. Civility. Hold tight to Democracy, community. Isn’t she lovely, 44 and the family. . . . Michelle My Belle.”
It was a stark reminder of what civility and love looks like.
, “Tell Lorrie I Love Her.”
