I’ve been hearing the song “Falling Slowly” from the movie Once a lot lately. It gives me the chills. The whole premise of the movie gives me chills. It’s about an Irish Street musician playing hit songs on his beat-up guitar during the day, and a young woman selling flowers, kind of a gypsy, with a child, living with her mother.

The gypsy girl runs into the musician wailing out one of his own songs on the street late at night. As soon as he finds out she plays piano, a short relationship creating music ensues.

The movie is cute because it could be anyone. It applies to the struggling musician by showing us this guy who is playing guitar alone on the street, keeping it up regardless. All it takes to start the momentum of getting some of his songs recorded onto a demo is this chance meeting with a fellow closeted musician. But this isn’t the only part of the story that is moving.

It runs like real life in the fact that they don’t hook up – it’s not exactly a love story, it’s a story of two artists who help each other not only in their art and music, but in their lives. They affect each other in a very profound way, and I found myself moved by their slow revealings through music played alone and together, in each other’s company.

Every time I hear the song on the radio, I feel hope, and I feel moved. I feel like there may be a chance for us mini-musicians out there.

I guess the actor/singer, Glen Hansard who plays the Irish guy in the movie is also the founder of the band The Frames, whose lyrics I’ve often been flabbergasted by. In a good way.

“Take this broken ship and point it home we still have ti-ime…”