Julie Horton firmly believes that she would not have chosen to follow a creative path and write songs if she hadn’t moved to Ireland over 20 years ago. Sitting in a café, nursing a coffee, with blonde hair framing her face, Julie could be just another emerging songwriter waxing lyrical about her ambitions, aspirations, dreams. But she isn’t a wide-eyed and naïve traveller on a ragged path to what she hopes is music industry stardom. These days, she says, she finds the often isolating after-effects of drama unappealing. These days, she continues, she is all about connection, and her music all about joining small but durable dots between heaven-sent melodies and earthbound pleasures.

 “When I first came to Ireland in my early-thirties, I immediately felt the effect of music,” says English-born Julie. “I'd go to houses and see instruments lying around; I became much more aware of incredible buskers on the streets; and people seemed much more keen to have sing-songs. I didn't have that same sort of cultural background. I remember spending a weekend with a friend who was building shelters in forests near the west coast; we sat around a campfire, and everybody had a piece, a song to sing, apart from me! I soon began going to local gigs all the time, saying to my social circle, ‘Does anybody want to come to Whelan’s?’, and they’d often reply, ‘We did that in our 20s!’, so sometimes I'd just go on my own.”

Alone in thought to and from intimate gigs in small venues, Julie absorbed the associations that seeped from the performances of many singers and songwriters, little knowing that such immersion would slowly strengthen her creative reach. Before too long, and with perhaps some surprise, she bought a guitar. “I still can’t play that well, but in the beginning, I was asked by my guitar teacher to learn the Nick Drake song, From the Morning.” And from such tests, Julie eventually found (and followed) her new path. “The fingerstyle of that song was a challenge, and it took about a year to learn how to play it properly,” she says. During that time frame, she started “noodling, just messing around, yet somehow I sensed I wanted to write my own material. That's when I got the realization that writing my own songs was what I was supposed to be doing.”

And so, as the saying goes, it has come to pass. Under the name of Far Away Blonde, Julie has written a collection of songs that disprove numerous things, one of which is that anyone over the age of 50 might as well give up the ghost when it comes to making art or creating music. Although not a multi-instrumentalist, during the pandemic Julie invested in recording software applications and hardware equipment. She set about learning how to go beyond acoustic versions, “and put as much of myself into each song.” Increasing awareness over the past few years of how intuitive a musician and arranger she is has enabled much more control over her work. On instinct, Julie has scored for guitars (including slide and bass) and orchestra (including oboes, flutes, piccolos, glockenspiels), as well as brass section and double bass. You can hear such confidence and proficiency in the music, while you only have to listen to the songs to know that vibrancy, clarity of thought, and human connectivity run through them like words through a stick of rock. Tracks such as Like It’s the First Time, I’ve Travelled Far, Circles, This Love, Come to the River, and All That Fire display everything that is right with song composition and arranging.

Like It’s the First Time comes across as a sweet-voiced Marianne Faithfull diving headfirst into Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks (“In all this tragedy, all this sorrow, all this pain, it’s plain I’m in love with all of this stuff… reachin’ for the rain…” Julie sings as horns and flute filter their way through the lyrics). I’ve Travelled Far is a sublime, tender song that outlines life’s knotty twists and turns without a hint of bitterness (“Nobody’s out, no one’s alone,” Julie discloses, bathed in a warm sonic wash, “we’re all in the light heading home”). Circles is like the spirits of Sinead O’Connor and the Cocteau Twins playing crafty word games with each other (“with a hand upon a beating heart to the rhythm of a song, let’s get along…”), while the song’s simple but effective grace carries it towards the skies. This Love is like tears seeping into silk, a song about how loving oneself is crucial before transferring your heartfelt feelings to someone else (“Every thought’s unchaining me, releasing all that pain in me, it’s something almost heavenly, I swear…”) as Julie’s voice floats over and through it like a will o’ the wisp. The result is a soft beauty that connects with the regret-tinged Superpower, which craves for a time before a multitude of experiential issues got in the way of living an easy life. “If we could talk of each perfect day, we might remember… what lovers say.” Come To the River, meanwhile, bids the feeling of love to leave, with the lover who has left. “You always make it seem like I got no self-esteem, I bet you’re unsurpassed at torturing… Go now, head on out to sea, set me free…” sings Julie, as trumpet player Tony Robinson (ex-Beautiful South) delivers Byzantine twists and swirls to the very end.

All of the songs radiate layers of a life lived to the resounding rhythm of a singular drum. Julie is no longer interested in writing strictly narrative songs – “the ones that are full of ‘you hurt me, I’m dumping you"‘. I couldn't write a song now that's full of anger or that sounds as if I’m working through things. Even my ideas on relationships have changed.”

Admitting to living life on a different, more forward-thinking level, Julie has fashioned her songs to reflect her maturity. “When you get to a certain age, I think most people wonder what life is all about, and start to really examine it. I've never been into consumerism: I just can't bear shopping! I've always been a little bit left of mainstream. I remember when I came to Ireland, I was called eccentric. I asked my friends why. They said if they phoned this or that girlfriend, she would either be in the pub or shopping, but if they phoned me, I’d probably be in a meadow.”

We are tempted to say that Julie Horton is outstanding in a field of her own (but we won’t). What we will admit is that she is one of Ireland’s best kept secrets just waiting to be uncovered, discovered, downloaded, absorbed, and praised.