At first, Christy Moore fans may be disappointed by this book. Simply because it's not the straight-forward, soul-searching biography many expected from the man. Instead, Moore free-associates his way through 250 of his favourite songs, adhering to no strict chronology, either in terms of his music or life.
But first impressions can be misleading. Reading through the book one soon realises Moore actually is revealing himself to a greater degree than ever before. And not just in relation to the more obvious disclosures about his prodigious appetite for drink, plus, it now transpires, drugs such as "hash, grass, LSD, mescaline, speed, peyote, cocaine, opium, heroin" and so on. Moore is at his most moving, honest and poetically precise when he focuses, for example, on his late mother and father.
"Mother nurtured me, my bones and flesh grew from her very life's blood. Writing this I can feel her close by, hear her heartbeat, smell her hair, hear her laugh, watch her cry, listen to her whistle or sing at the kitchen sink," he writes about Nancy Power. As for his father, Andy? "I can remember his clothes and his hair and his hands and nails and the waft of tobacco and Brylcreem."
Moore draws a veil over any disclosures that relate directly to his own family "the most important part of my life". Why? "When I perform I give you everything I've got - I give you my best shot, my heart and all my emotions are weaved into each performance. The life I share within this family is a different story. It is not mine to give - it is ours." Fair enough.
Even so, sometimes through this prismatic perspective on his past Moore speaks volumes, in silence. As when he places a 1973 photograph of his wife, Valerie, alongside the lyric of The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, yet doesn't refer to her in the text accompanying that song.
One Voice also uses songs and lyrics to tell the tale of the many musicians, fans, travellers, real artists and con-artists Moore met along the way. Though, again, nothing is revealed about his pro-republican affiliations.
An emotional reticence runs through every page of this book. Even when writing about his mother and father Moore seems one step removed from his emotions. Likewise, when referring to drugs he rarely ventures further than listing those he can "remember in ten minutes without stopping to think", as though he is terrified to peer deeper into those shadows. This, perhaps, is understandable, given the much-publicised nervous breakdowns Moore suffered during the period he was writing this book. The prose, at times, is also decidedly shabby, superficial, rushed and repetitive, more like transcriptions of taped speech than writing sculpted with the same attention Moore pays to the lyrics of his songs. Nevertheless, One Voice is essential reading for anyone who owns even one Christy Moore CD.
Joe Jackson is a freelance writer and broadcaster