Johnny Barnes

Inspired by one of the oldest surviving LGBTQ+ Irish folk songs, JOHNNY BARNES is a post-modern gender-blending storytelling project encompassing music and narrative that tells the story of a repressed lord who becomes infatuated with a common sailor and questions his own gender identity in the process. Exploring gay love and proto-trans ideation, the second half features original music and lyrics imagining a genderqueer utopia. It is one of the very few songs left to us in the British/Irish folk canon with a surviving LGBTQ+ story not erased by song collectors.

This previously unheard version was collected by Sam Lee from Sally Connors, an Irish traveller from the oral song tradition who is in her mid-90s and had not otherwise passed it on. The musicians, including Director Alex Etchart as lead singer/instrumentalist, perform throughout the piece in a storytelling-themed studio and at the various locations around the action, sometimes mirroring characters and performing solos against scenic backdrops.

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