Broken Wing is the first single from Cormac Neeson’s Northern Ireland Music Prize nominated album, White Feather, which is slated for re-issue through Social Family Records in Q2, 2020.
In addition to the singles and album being re-released around the globe, the re-issue will also include some never before released bonus tracks, and more, for those in the UK and Ireland who already have access to the brilliant record. Opened up to the rest of the world today, Broken Wing can now be streamed everywhere and is also available to radio for airplay.Co-written by Neeson with Tennessee legend, Blue Miller, the track was recorded in Nashville and mixed in Belfast. It features an emotional arrangement that combines the best of both of those rich and diverse cultures, including beautifully crafted Nashville pedal steel by John Heinrich (who has performed with artists such as Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, and Tammy Wynette) to a magical blend of choral backing vocals from some of the finest Northern Irish singers, hand-picked by Neeson. The production and sound of the finished recording conveys the vulnerability that such a delicate subject matter demands.
Commenting on the track, Neeson says, “I’ve never written a song like Broken Wing before. Even though I’ve heard it hundreds of times now, I still get emotional every time I sing it back because of just how relevant the lyric is to my life and my family’s life. It’s my hope that maybe when people hear this song they can relate to the message.”
In Northern Ireland, Cormac Neeson is an ambassador for Mencap, a learning disability charity, who have fully supported Broken Wing and the album, White Feather. The new partnership stemmed from an instant connection with the lyrics of Broken Wing.
In 2014, his son Dabhóg was born three months prematurely and with Down’s Syndrome. The impact of that life changing experience had such a lasting and profound effect that Neeson sought solace in penning an autobiographical and emotional account of his inner thoughts and what it’s like to bring up a child with disability.
Dabhóg attended the Mencap Children’s Centre in Belfast when he was two years old, the Centre a unique specialist learning environment for children with a learning disability, autism and developmental delay, which is run in partnership with the Belfast Health Trust. The charity also provides programmes and family support services to help parents and carers of young children with a learning disability.
Neeson hopes that the song and his family’s story will help raise awareness of learning disability. In support of the single, he also made a short mini documentary about the making of Broken Wing, which is he himself gets the extra chromosome 21 that forms the genetic ID of Down’s Syndrome, tattooed on his shoulder. Watch the documentary on YouTube here.
