Breaking Hearts on a Musical Journey Down Damien's Rocky Road Oh, woe is me, for I hath traversed the sorrowful musical path known as "The Rocky Road," carved out by the lamenting voice of the Irish bard, Damien Dempsey. Gird your loins (and your eardrums), good folk, as I regale you with the torturous tale of how my heart was shattered, bit by bit, just as surely as if Damien had stomped upon it with his massive, ballad-singing boots. It all began on June 6th, 2008, when the lovely people of Ireland (ever the masochists) decided that the rest of the world needed to drown in their sorrowful musical stylings once more. Damien, with the aid of his musical minions, John Sheahan and Barney McKenna of the Dubliners, masterfully crafted a compilation of ballads filled with woe and despair. Little did the listening public realize the depths to which their souls would be dragged upon pressing play. The album, oh so aptly titled "The Rocky Road," takes listeners on a tour of misery and heartache. Like an evil pied piper, Damien reels us in with familiar tunes like 'The Rocky Road to Dublin' and 'The Foggy Dew', luring us deeper and deeper into his web of wistfulness. What manner of darkness must reside in the hearts of our Irish brethren to celebrate such melancholic melodies? And as if to add insult to injury, as we are led on this downward spiral, Damien blindsides us with the lesser-known tunes such as 'Schooldays Over' and 'Hot Asphalt.' Did he take this cruel, twisted path merely to awaken memories of playground bullies and broken hearts, or does his callousness run deeper than the depths of the River Liffey itself? Ah, but there is no escaping the grip of Damien's mournful crooning once it has ensnared you. As sure as the mournful moans of lost souls upon the wind, you are carried along on this musical voyage of despair. With each tearful note, your heartstrings are brutally ripped apart until naught remains but the barest fragments of what was once a happy, joy-filled existence. But beware, dear readers, for it is not only our own hearts that are ravaged by this melodic marauder! Nay, Ireland itself has seen the fallout of Damien's dreadful dirges. Perhaps it is his voice that drives the rains to fall upon the Emerald Isle, pelting its lands with the tears of countless mourners. Why else would the weather turn so dreary when these accursed songs are unleashed upon the unsuspecting public? And so, I beseech you, hold your loved ones close and guard your emotions for I have laid witness to the desolation left in Damien's wake along "The Rocky Road." As Shakespeare himself once wrote, "For misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows." In this case, I can think of no stranger bedfellow than the heart-wrenching tunes of Damien Dempsey, destroyer of hearts.