Featured Essay: Name Your Joy

by Jim Parisi

There are a few times in my life when I’ve gone from zero to groupie in a matter of minutes. Those moments when I’ve heard a song or seen a live performance and forged an instant connection to a band that ended up going beyond mere appreciation of the music. 

The more obscure the band, the bigger the thrill. The thrill of discovery, of being in on the ground floor, of being one of the few who knows and loves their music, of being that guy who can’t stop himself from going on and on about them to his friends—friends who don’t necessarily share his fervor, even if they might like the music when dragged to a show, and who might even get annoyed at being subjected to his constant chatter. 

I was definitely that guy in my college days, when finding new music became an obsession; an obsession that didn’t loosen its hold on me in the years following graduation. But that ardor for latching onto the new, for claiming a band as my own, waned as I got older. So much so that I often lamented what happened to the eager lad who used to spend hours, and a decent percentage of his disposable income, digging through the crates at his favorite record store (St. Mark’s Sounds in the East Village, RIP).

Little did I know that I would rekindle some of that old magic under the least likely of circumstances. In April 2024, my wife, Beth, and I took a group tour around the entire island of Ireland. We had a free afternoon on the first official day of the tour in Dublin and, after consulting the guidebook, decided to visit the Irish Rock ’n’ Roll Museum. Perhaps not the attraction most people would pick on a short stay in Dublin. But the museum tours got great reviews online, and we were in the mood for something off the beaten path. And it’s rock and roll, baby! How could we pass that up?

The museum lived up to the hype. Our affable guide, Brian, proved to be a funny, energetic cheerleader for Irish rock and roll. He led us through hallways and rooms lined with memorabilia, telling stories along the way about the Irish musicians he knew and had befriended over the years, several of whom had recorded in the museum’s studio and played on its concert stage. One room even had a setup for guitar, bass, and drums; a few members of the group got on stage to play a brief jam session. The museum also gives up-and-coming bands access to its professional recording facilities. It honors the greatness of Irish rock history but has an eye to the future. At the end of the tour, Brian showed us a brief film about the new bands that were carrying on the island’s grand rock and roll tradition. 

After the tour ended, we had the coolest chance encounter, and the most memorable unplanned activity of the trip, which we would never be able to replicate in a lifetime of return visits to Dublin. Up the street from our hotel, we saw a mural with the words “PILLOW QUEENS” spanning the top. Below “PILLOW,” over a blue background, read the words “Name Your Sorrow.” A bowed line separated that from the other side, a white background with “Name Your Joy” underneath QUEENS. 

The wall was filled with comments—some serious, some funny, some hopeful, some political, some absurd, some mundane—that passers-by had written in marker on either side of the dividing line. Many of the comments on the sorrow side were gut-wrenching; one that stands out lamented not being accepted by their family because of their sexual identity. 

Beth and I stepped back across the tram lines to snap a photo of the entire wall. We had seen Pillow Queens in the short film that Brian had shown us about the future of Irish rock; so we knew that they were an up-and-coming Dublin band. I wondered aloud to Beth about the decision to put the sorrows under “PILLOW" and the  joys under “QUEENS," and also about the connection, if any, between the band and the mural. I assumed that my questions were rhetorical, but a young woman next to us said, “I can answer any questions you have. I’m the bass player in the band. " 

The bassist, Sarah to her new friends Jim and Beth, told us that a friend of hers had painted the mural that morning to promote the band’s forthcoming album, which would be called Name Your Sorrow. She was pleased when we told her about the band’s brief appearance in the film. We chatted for a bit about our travel itinerary and the band’s plans to tour the U.S. later in the year (we assured her that we’d be there if they came anywhere near D. C.). Sarah agreed enthusiastically when I asked if she’d be willing to take a selfie with us in front of the mural. 

What ensued might be the most awkward selfie ever taken. Trying to fit Beth and me in the same frame is a challenge under the best of conditions; doing so while also trying to capture a mural from across the street, with a third person looming behind us, made the task even more difficult. But I think, and others have concurred, that if the finished product is awkward, it is endearingly so. After that ordeal was over, we thanked Sarah for being so helpful and welcoming and left to head over to the hotel, giddy about what we had just experienced. 

Within minutes of that serendipitous encounter, the spark ignited. I felt that old rush of adrenaline I used to get when I discovered a new band, and it took no time for the old evangelical zeal to take hold. Pillow Queens might have had a following among those in the know in their home country, but Beth and I were treading virgin territory for our stateside friends.

The story was too good not to share right away. While we were still in front of the mural, I messaged my friend Shirley, who is married to Irish rock royalty, Jake Burns of Stiff Little Fingers, to ask if she had ever heard of Pillow Queens. She replied that she had not but agreed that the story was very cool. Back at the hotel, I texted the photo to my friend Liam and recommended that he check out Name Your Sorrow. Beth texted her sister and brother-in-law, who she knew would go for this type of music. We were going to make this band a household name back home, one text at a time. 

The feeling was reminiscent of how I felt the last time I had fallen this hard for a little-known band, in 1990, when I heard the band that would become, and still remains, one of my favorites, Mother May I. 

I remember the first time I saw them, at a “3 Bands for 3 Bucks" show at the old 9:30 Club in D.C. I loved going to those shows because the price was right and I got to see up-and-coming bands, even if many of them didn’t end up making much of an impression on me. But I remember thinking, within minutes of hearing Mother May I, that I didn’t know if these guys would ever amount to anything, but they had it, whatever “it” was. 

For the next few years, I never missed an opportunity to see them live, and I never passed up a chance to proselytize for the band, often exuberantly. (I remember leaving a long, rambling phone message for Shirley the day after seeing them at another show at the 9:30. Thank God that predated digital voicemail, or I might still be living in fear that it will resurface; although Shirley did tell me that my message was so amusing that she saved it on her answering machine.)

I was all in on Mother May I from the first time I saw them. And I’ve remained with them ever since—through the good times leading up to their first major release, to the bad times of getting dropped from their label, to the second record on an independent label, to the reunion show in 2010, to the comeback record in 2023. I listened to their first album, Splitsville, so many times that my older kid, no more than ten at the time,  told me that they were tired of Mother May I because they had been listening to them their entire life.

Somewhere along the way, it all stopped. I no longer sought out new music with the same sense of purpose. Instead, I fell into the rut of listening to the same bands that I had known for years, with occasional diversions from the routine to explore new bands. But those exceptions were usually drive-bys—brief flings with an album, or even a single, that didn’t spark intense interest in the band’s catalog. Sometimes, the dive into the band’s recordings led me to think, for any number of reasons, that I had heard enough without needing to explore more. Other times, I would lose track of a band and not bother to try to pick up the scent again.

 The last band that I remember latching onto the same way that I did with Pillow Queens—a band whose music induced me to gobble up its entire back catalog and anxiously await its next release—was Fountains of Wayne, more than twenty years ago. And they were already an established band on the brink of their biggest success. That doesn’t count, at least not in this context.

Who’s to blame for this gap in my musical curiosity? I would be the first to admit that the finger needs to point in my direction. Sure, I could blame my kids, whose mere existence reshaped my priorities in the late ’90s. But other parents I know manage to consume new music without having their now-grown children make appearances in the police blotter. In the parenting versus music debate, there’s room for both guns and butter.

I won’t even blame my inability to maintain a functioning turntable—even though the three broken units sitting in my attic are easy targets—or my loss of a functioning CD player around a decade ago. Those are easily replaceable or fixable; taking either of those actions would have allowed me to enjoy my vinyl and CD collections. Besides, I bought a portable DJ turntable a few years ago and even got some new vinyl to play on it. But those were records from bands that I already knew very well.

Lastly, I would love nothing more than to blame streaming and the pernicious algorithms that guide my musical suggestions based on music I already like. While the entire streaming model is stultifying—for listeners as well as the bands who earn little from the music they create—I cannot absolve myself, not when I had been so lazy in my listening habits. 

I spent years listening online to many of the same records that I owned on vinyl and CD. I would make occasional forays outside the algorithm for new music, either by following suggestions from friends or through deliberate attempts to go beyond the offerings on my home page. I ended up finding some good music that I still enjoy, but nothing that caught fire the way that Pillow Queens would.

So my plunge into the Pillow Queens universe was an unexpected blast from a past that was more than thirty years in the rear-view mirror. The main difference this time was that I fell for Mother May I when I heard them play. I bought into the music and their stage presence from the first song. But I hadn’t heard a note from Pillow Queens when I declared myself a devotee. I needed to remedy that right away.

My biggest fear as I settled onto the couch in our hotel room to stream the new album was that I wouldn’t like the music. It was a distinct possibility. Plenty of musicians who I am sure are perfectly pleasant people make music that does not move me. This was not a guaranteed love connection. But I didn’t think I could bear the disappointment if our meet-cute with Sarah turned out to be nothing more than a cool story that fizzled after the first act. 

Luckily, my fears proved unfounded. From the opening notes of the first song, “February 8th,” with its droning, ringing guitars, I knew that this was a band I could settle in with for the long haul. I quickly made my way through the new album, then attacked the rest of the band’s catalog on our bus rides for the rest of the two-week tour. 

The songs manage to be both grandiose and introspective. The lyrics focus on the personal; many address growing up as queer women in a Catholic country. The guitars are loud and buzzy, the drums and Sarah’s bass heavy and thumping, the vocals—in their Irish accents—distinctive and mesmerizing. They have slow songs that layer on the sonic effects and a few faster rockers. And in a move that will always be dear to my Fugazi-loving heart, they can turn any song into an anthem with the flick of a switch, as they do in two of my favorites, “Gay Girls” and “Rats.” They pull off sounding both noisy and polished. The verdict: music good, potential crisis averted.

Our infatuation with Pillow Queens didn’t evaporate after we touched down at BWI at the end of our trip. In fact, our brief flirtation with them on the tour was just the beginning. The band entered my regular musical rotation. I bought their records on Bandcamp, digitally as well as on vinyl, and created a playlist of all their songs, which Beth and I listen to all the time. I never pass up an opportunity to introduce new people to the band. It’s like the old days, except I hope that I come off as less strident than I was in my youth.

No matter how fervently I immersed myself in the band, I was a mere piker compared to Beth. This is the first time in ages—maybe since I recruited her to the cause of Mother May I in the early days of our relationship; no, scratch that, she was a huge Norah Jones fan at the beginning of the millennium—that she has taken an acute interest in any musical artist. 

But there she was, listening to Pillow Queens constantly, learning all the lyrics, signing up for the band’s newsletter, and buying tickets to a show in Los Angeles for her sister and brother-in-law. She even emailed the person who handles publicity for the band to let them know that we were the crazy Americans in the infamous selfie,  who would be attending their show in D.C. in September.

I bought tickets for that show, which would take place at a club in Northeast D.C., as soon as they went on sale in the spring. Almost everyone in attendance in the small space was years younger than Beth and I. We felt like the older couple in the TV series We Are Lady Parts, who show up at all the young band’s performances, surrounded by fans half their age. 

We had a great time, notwithstanding our geriatric status. The band played for about an hour, focusing on the new album but mixing in some older tracks. I wish they had played longer, so I could have heard “Gay Girls,” “Rats,” “HowDoILook,” and many of my other favorites. Maybe next time. 

The evening wrapped up with a trip to the merch table, where we waited in line so Beth could buy a T-shirt. I saw Sarah and knew what I had to do in the unlikely event that she didn’t remember us. But she smiled and said hello as soon as we took our turn at the front of the line. I showed her the selfie, which I had at the ready on my phone as proof of our encounter, as if she would forget that. She laughed and got the attention of lead singer Pamela, who took a look at the photo and made a comment about us being the ones she had been hearing about. Beth and I left the club feeling validated in our exalted status as Pillow Queens groupies. 

Something changed on that street in Dublin on that fateful day in April. What started as an amusing story to tell to anyone who would listen soon became a gateway to a bond that continues to this day. A bond that has reawakened my love for finding out about new music, which has led me to discover many new bands that I never would have known about before that most awkward of selfies. 

Over the past year, I have learned to look past that awkwardness to see the joy in the photo, the same joy I feel whenever I listen to Pillow Queens.

Jim Parisi lives in Washington, D.C., with his long-suffering wife, Beth, and Dolce, a spicy mix of boxer, pit bull, and Australian cattle dog. (Their two kids, Aidan and Nora, have flown the coop.) After a long career as an editor of  research products for the academic  market, he is setting out on his own as a freelance editor.  He is a writer of various fictions and the occasional essay. Much of his free time is spent coaching Little League softball. He also plays a mediocre bass and has been known to make sounds that some species might recognize as music on the guitar. He grew up in New Jersey but urges readers not to hold that against him

Previously by Jim Parisi: You’re My Favorite Thing