A Tribute To Oscar-Winning Irish Musician Glen Hansard, Who Passed Away in a Motorcycle Accident

I sighed shakily with Ireland today. From my family home to the gym and shops around town, there's a heaviness about. We lost someone today, one of the rare people who made the phrase 'the best of us' entirely appropriate; not an overstatement or shallow words.

Glen Hansard was truly the best of us.

For those who aren't familiar, Glen was the founder and frontman of The Frames, which are one of Ireland's most influential rock bands. He won an Academy Award in 2008 and a Grammy five years later. Those are the accolades that will make headlines this week and, hopefully, draw new eyes and ears to listen, learn, and benefit from his work. But those who know of Glen know those aren't the things that best tell who he was.

His voice, his music, defined a sound for Ireland over the past three decades. It never sounded diddely di, but it embodied the heart of this thing we call Irishness. A hearing-impaired human from halfway across the world could tell you his songs were Irish.

That's what he gave to the world, to Ireland, but on an individual level he gave even more.

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Glen founded the Christmas Eve Busk, which was a gathering of Irish musicians in aid of the Dublin Simon Community, and raised over €2 million. It might be better to say he unintentionally founded it, because it was unintentional. In 2010, Glen stood by himself on Grafton Street, Dublin, and busked on the street for charity. No stage. No warning. He inspired the big names, like Bono, Damien Rice, Hozier, and Dermot Kennedy, to name a few, to join in later years. He was a busker to his core; the energy he sang with stopped the busiest street at the busiest time of the year.

If you've never heard a man sing like it's the last thing he'll ever do, you've never listened to Glen Hansard. Those who've heard that also received a gift from Glen because, after you hear it, it changes your perception of how powerful, verging on violently emotional music can be. At least, it did for me; growing up listening to Glen inspired me to pick up a guitar and sing, which led me across a continent on my own busking journey, only to meet the man himself along the way.

In Prague airport, more than a decade ago, on the way back to resume my exploration of busking after attending a close friend's funeral back home, I ran into Glen waiting for his luggage on the carousel. He was on his own busking trip, unbeknownst to the public or media. We spoke about what was going on in our lives long after the belt stopped whining. The most memorable piece of advice he gave me was to "sing what you love, and the people will come."Of course, it was about busking, but I've applied it to so much more, and it has yet to falter. He made me feel like I knew him, almost instantly, and that's not an uncommon story from those who've met the musician.

You may have noticed that I've been referring to him as Glen, rather than Hansard, which would be the correct way, professionally speaking. An unforced error that sparked a thought, not too dissimilar to the one that started this piece. If I had to crown a man of the people, a man for the people, I couldn't find a higher head to wear it than Glen's. And I highly doubt he'd have minded me calling him by his first name; I dare think he'd have been happy about it. Glen Hansard lost his life after crashing his motorcycle at 56 years old on Wednesday morning, but his music lives on, so please lend him your ears today.

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