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Mar 13, 2019 By Stephen Axeman Photography by Stephan Vanfleteren Glen Hansard

Glen Hansard has shared his triumphant new video for “Fool’s Game,” off of This Wild Willing (due out April 12 via ANTI-), and we are pleased to premiere it. Following the release of the single and “I’ll Be You, Be Me,” which was one of our Songs of the Week, the video for “Fool’s Game,” filmed by Myles O’Reilly, finds Hansard exploring the inspiration of Parisian nightlife. Hansard goes out for a night on the town, but turned inwards in public, listening and watching before the track explodes and we see Hansard rejoicing with his friends as he crosses some internal barrier. Check out the video below, followed by Hansard’s upcoming tour dates.

We also just posted an extensive interview with Hansard on This Wild Willing and you can read that here.

On the making of the video, Hansard had this to say in an interview with Under the Radar: “My only direction for the filmmaker was let’s go into Paris—you know we had some really wonderful evenings in Paris with friends—and let’s record a night out. We knew it would start at a café, and let’s take the night into the day. Basically, it was one evening of wandering from one place to another, it didn’t feel like work: of course we got drunk, we ate food, and we went to a party. Then we went to a bar. Then a club. And we just kept going…while it was interesting that Freddy Wiseman is a huge influence on it—what I ended up with is a lot of footage. And I just sat with it. I had some kind of narrative in my head—loosely based on Ed van der Elsken’s—the Dutch photographer’s book of Paris in the 1950s called Love on the Left Bank. Then we had to abandon that idea. The footage presented someone in trouble, he’s somewhat distant from his friends, and the conversations. And the footage is all documentary, there’s no real set up in the video—it’s more just filming what happened. And I agreed I would sing the song a couple of times through the night. This guy seems like he’s in another place, somehow—it’s almost like I made up the narrative later on. I like when you’re led by the moods, rather than trying to force a mood into the lens. My reference was that, there’s a kind of Wim Wenders angel present, not involved, just watching. It’s a simple spirit to the whole thing…the spirit of the video is one of friendship, trust, and sadness. I very much see myself as a character here, rather than me, even though the evening was very much shot with me.”

This Wild Willing follows the improvisatory approach that guided the making of the video. The album was “conceived in Paris” and recorded at Black Box studios wit producer David Odlum. The album also features classically-trained Iranian musicians the Khoshravesh brothers, long-time Hansard associates Joe Doyle (bass) and ROMY (piano, vocals, string arrangements), and Dublin electronic musicians Deasy and Dunk Murphy (Sunken Foal). Hansard, of course, is also in The Frames and The Swell Season and, alongside Markéta Irglová, won an Academy Award for Best Song for “Falling Slowly” from the film Once that Hansard and Irglová both starred in. A press release for the album describes it as “an album guided and formed by the twin totems of resolve and surrender - the resolve to see a thing through alongside a willingness to surrender, to trust in that which lies outside yourself - the other musicians in the room, your lover, your healer, your audience.”

Glen Hansard Tour Dates:

3/7 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Koninklijk Theater Carré
3/8 - Hamburg, Germany - Elbphilharmonie Hamburg
3/21 - New York, NY - Michael Dorf Presents The Music of Van Morrison
3/22 - New York, NY - The Strand Presents Glen Hansard In Conversation w/ Alan
Light
3/29 - Pelham, TN - PBS Bluegrass Underground Live Tapings at the Caverns
4/9 - Dublin, Ireland - Vicar Street
4/10 - Dublin, Ireland - Vicar Street
4/12 - Derry, United Kingdom - St. Columb’s Hall
4/13 - Derry, United Kingdom - St. Columb’s Hall
4/15 - London, United Kingdom - Barbican Centre
4/16 - London, United Kingdom - Barbican Centre
4/27 - Paris, France - Casino de Paris
4/29 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Koninklijk Theater Carré
4/30 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Koninklijk Theater Carré
5/2 - Kobenhavn, Denmark - Amager Bio / BETA
5/4 - Stockholm, Sweden - Skandiascenen
5/6 - Brussels, Belgium - Cirque Royal
5/8 - Cologne, Germany - Kőlner Philharmonie
5/9 - Frankfurt Am Main, Germany - Alte Oper
5/11 - Brno-žabovřesky, Czech Republic - 5th Anniversary of SONO Centrum
5/13 - Warszawa, Poland - Palladium
5/14 - Warszawa, Poland - Palladium
5/16 - Berlin, Germany - Admiralspalast
5/17 - Berlin, Germany - Admiralspalast
5/19 - Berlin, Germany - Admiralspalast
5/29 - Boston, MA - Orpheum Theatre
5/31 - Philadelphia, PA - Merriam Theater
6/1 - New York, NY - Beacon Theatre
6/3 - Washington DC - Lincoln Theatre

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