The second single from Irish singer-songwriter Niamh Regan’s forthcoming album, Come as You Are, sneaks up on you. At first listen, “Belly” is a breezy tune with a steady rhythm, tasteful guitars and Regan’s inviting vocals, a song that echoes the long ago even as it embraces the now. As she told RTE’s Other Voices of the album as a whole, “It’s almost like ‘dad rock’ but with a cranky woman voice.”
“Dad rock” as a term, for those unaware, leapt into the mainstream as a pejorative directed at Wilco in a 2007 Pitchfork review, but in the years since it’s become little more than shorthand for the stereotypical musical interests of middle-aged men, with the prefix now often applied to other genres, too. (That many women enjoy the same grooves, as anyone who’s attended a Bruce Springsteen concert can attest, is somehow beside the point.) For me, pushing 60, “dad rock” mostly conjures the artists and bands of the 1970s and ‘80s, when melody was king (or queen), guitar solos were plentiful and lyrics resonated long after the song ended. In a sense, every young(er) artist I spotlight on this blog could be defined as “dad rock”—or “dad country,” “dad folk” or “dad soul,” even though many of them are women. (“Dad,” in this context, is synonymous with “old school.”) That includes Regan, who first turned my ears in 2020 with her sublime debut, Hemet.
On second listen, when pay closer attention to the lyrics, “Belly” reveals itself in full. Between the opening lines (“Your time is as good as my time/And you do what you want with it”) and the closing admission, which flips the script (“My time is as good as your time/And I’ll do what I want with it”), much is left unsaid. Yet we know. We know. The secret that the song’s narrator vows not to tell friends is there, between the lines. In truth, it’s a secret some of those very friends—his and hers alike—already suspect but are afraid to mention.
In short, “Belly” is a deft take on a complex subject, and well worth everyone’s attention—as is the album, which is slated for release on May 1st.
The Old Grey Cat 
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