‘Theme From Harry’s Game’: The song Bono claimed “knocked over everyone in Europe”
By the mid-1980s, U2 had even surpassed The Police and The Clash as the British Isles’ most successful and chart-conquering musical export. Burnished in punk’s flame, the Dublin quartet hid sincere Christian eschatology behind secular post-punk lyricism, and frontman Bono‘s earnest showmanship pulled the ostensibly new wave band swiftly to the grand arena platforms they were gunning for since their 1980s debut, Boy. By the decade’s close, U2 were the biggest band on the planet.
U2’s most pivotal album in their journey to rock stardom was 1984’s The Unforgettable Fire. Having cut the rawer and belligerent War, the band sought to channel the record’s core thesis of humanitarian hope and thematically adopt a greater degree of universality in their songwriting. Cue songs concerning Martin Luther King Jr, the atomic bombing victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and an emerging fascination with Americana which would truly bloom on 1987’s The Joshua Tree.
Sonically, U2 took a crucial step forward, too. Sparking the long-time production partnership with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, U2 sought to enter a new atmospheric tundra of ambient etherea and widescreen expanse of heavy reverb and delays to illustrate The Edge’s growing textured guitar style. Realising the studio as an instrument would form a major feature of U2’s creative process for the rest of their career.
An embrace of keyboard washes and elegiac pads may have been inspired by one family band from the Republic’s County Donegal, who struck the charts domestically but were yet to reach Stateside. “Have you heard of an Irish group that are working now in this middle ground between traditional and contemporary music called Clannad?” Bono asked Hot Press in 1984. “Clannad is Gaelic for ‘family’, and they’ve made some very powerful pieces of music, including a song called ‘Theme From Harry’s Game‘, it’s from a film and it knocked over everyone in Europe”.
He added: “It didn’t get played in the US. It’s just vocal and they used some low bass frequencies in it as well—it’s just beautiful”.
The Clannad family had been steadily dropping LPs of authentic Celtic folk since the early 1970s. Recruiting their younger sister Eithne Ní Bhraonáin, better known as Enya, for 1980s Crann Úll, an incremental move toward new age synthesisers and voluminous vocal layers began to seep into their work, pulling the band away from their prior arcane Gaelic dwellings to a more cinematic and ethereal realm. Enya would depart Clannad with producer and manager Nicky Ryan just as their biggest hit would fall in their lap.
Looking for a band to score drama surrounding the Troubles, Harry’s Game, Yorkshire Television commissioned Clannad to compose its defining theme. Writing the piece in a couple of hours, ‘Theme From Harry’s Game‘ unusually swept the charts for a single in Gaelic, peaking at number five in the UK and two in the Irish charts. A major label jump to RCA followed with their theme tacked onto 1983’s Magical Ring, and their Prophet-5 synth would stand as prominent an instrument as the tin whistle or mandolin for the rest of their tenure.
And Bono would stand as one of their biggest fans. Fresh off U2’s Live Aid performance, Bono collaborated with Clannad on ‘In a Lifetime’, the last single from 1986’s Macalla.
