Imelda May: 'I love the vibe at the Marquee in Cork'

“I love playing in the Marquee,” Imelda May declares, after expressing surprise at being told it has been 10 years since she last played there. She first played Live at the Marquee in 2011, selling out her show and having another added. After that, she performed there from 2012 to 2014, and lastly in 2016.

“It’s such a fun gig,” she continues. “Sometimes it feels like the Wild West. The crowd go wild. I love the vibe in it. It has its own vibe.”

Having witnessed those early appearances, the scenes of May, with her livewire presence and kiss curl hair, backed by that raw rockabilly sound; a music steeped in a sense of romanticised outlaw-ness, excited audiences.

She returns to the Marquee with a very different show. Titled Raised on Songs and Stories, it features new stripped-back versions of her catalogue as well as favourite songs, interspersed with her poetry and storytelling.

In Cork to chat about the show, May, dressed in uniform Rock Chick black; the lapels of her leather biker jacket emblazoned with a shiny Palestine flag pin and shiny Easter Lilly pin, and her fingers adorned with an eye-catching bulbous silver Griffin head ring, exudes a rebel spirit.

With this show, is she looking for a Wild West atmosphere, or something more solemn?

“Neither,” she proclaims. “The only thing I’m looking for on this whole tour is connection, and it’s been really, really lovely and very special. Everywhere I’ve brought this show has been extraordinary and every night is different. I have a basic bones of the night to lean on, but it changes every night, and that’s been the beauty for me. There’s not been rules as to where it can go, and I definitely welcome the audience’s vibe, whatever that is.

“And it changes. Even if I’m in the same venue for three nights, each night will still be different. It depends on who turns up and what they bring. It’s kind of lovely to go with that rather than have a show where you decide what it is and you present that. It’s lovely to show up and feel what’s happening in the room and then go with that and let it flow. And that’s what’s happening each night.”

Describing the show as warm-hearted and inclusive, May says “it’s influenced a hundred per cent from my family and our culture of being raised in a house where a sing-song will kick off and everybody will join in.”

Hence the show’s title, which along with the domestic setting stage design evokes both a family home and life lived in Dublin’s Liberties.

“It makes sense in what it is. And when I was growing up it wasn’t always songs. People would tell a story, or a poem, or anything. Or a dance. Whatever you wanted to give.”

Raised on Songs and Stories does have a bit of a “wild west” connection. West Cork, that is, where the show was germinated over the course of two nights at Connolly’s of Leap in August 2024.

“I’m going to start writing another album soon,” she says by way of explanation to how she arrived at the idea, “and I wanted to revisit songs that I hadn’t done. And then, I was curious – you know you can’t fit every song in – and wondering what people wanted to hear. And then I wondered, what do people want to hear. And then I thought, oh, I’ll ask them, and they’ll tell me. And if they want to hear a song I’ll do it.

“So, it kinda came simply from that. And then I actually gave it a trial run-in. I was doing my poetry and I was asked to turn up and do a few spoken word poetry things, and I didn’t see why it all had to be separated. So, I thought, I just want to do whatever comes naturally, so I gave it two guinea pig runs in Connolly’s and it was incredible. It was lovely. It was very loose then. I was just trying it out as a concept, and it worked. And I just thought there’s something in this.”

Underpinning the show is the ethos that the audience are not been given a night, they’re part of a night, “and that’s what I wanted to tap into with this.”

She will ask the audience if there is anything they want to hear, and she’s more than happy to go with the flow.

“People ask for songs of mine that I haven’t heard of in a long time,” she shares. “One woman shouted up for a song that I couldn’t remember. And then she said, ‘Well, I remember it.’ She said, ‘do you not know your own songs?’ I said, jeez, it’s been so long. I forgot I even wrote that song. I said, do you know it? And she said, ‘yeah.’

“I said, you sing it! And everybody was, yeeaaah!

I said, come on! She said, ‘will you help me?’ I said, of course!

So, she jumped up and she was like, ‘I haven’t got a note in my head.’ I said it doesn’t matter. We’ll all sing it.

“It was just such a lovely moment. And we all laughed and had a good time. She was telling me the words of my song, and it was just lovely. And sure, why not!

“So, there’s been moments like that, and then there’s been people shouting out songs that I’ve never done. And somebody shouted out a song that they wanted me to sing, and I was thinking, God! Alright! I’ll give it a go. And we did. And it was fun.

“Somebody else started a soul song in the audience, and she couldn’t get up to me so we all sang it with her. It was lovely.”

While not exactly “Mayhem”, there is a place for the unexpected.

One thing that is expected this year is the tribute album to Shane MacGowan. Titled 20th Century Paddy, it has so far been heralded by two singles, the first a cover by Bruce Spingsteen of “A Rainy Night in Soho” and, in the week we meet, a cover of “Haunted” featuring May. It is a song that is very special to the singer, given that arguably its most well-known recording features May’s friend Sinéad O’Connor taking the female part. Remarkably, the male vocal is taken by a man who knows a thing or two about ghosts, Captain Jack Sparrow himself, Johnny Depp!

“I know!” May enthuses. “I met Johnny through our dear and late friend Jeff Beck. Our friendship is because of Jeff. I was great pals with Sinéad, and Johnny was great pals with Shane. And, of course, Shane was a friend of mine as well and we duetted with each other many times. I miss all three of them very much So, it made sense to do that song with Johnny because it all sits together.”

Imelda May brings Raised on Songs & Stories to Live at the Marquee on June 12.