The Subterranean World of Peter Mulvey
Former Busker Records Album in Boston Subway

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Peter Mulvey, at home in the subway Photo: Liz Linder

From ten thousand mornings "Running up the Stairs" (by Leo Kottke) "Mama, You've Been on My Mind" (by Bob Dylan) "Oliver's Army" (by Elvis Costello) From the 1995 album rapture "If Love is Not Enough" From the 1997 album deep blue "Deep Blue" Recorded in Boston's Davis T stop exclusively for NPR "Rise"

Sept 22, 2002 -- Singer-songwriter Peter Mulvey started out as a busker, first in the streets of Dublin, then in the Boston Subway. He's gone on to make several albums in recording studios, but on his most recent outing, he sank back to the underground.

The album, all cover songs by Elvis Costello, Los Lobos, Bob Dylan and others, is called ten thousand mornings, a reference to the estimated number of people who pass through the Davis Street T stop each morning. That's where it was recorded.

Playing in the subway "has been the greatest object lesson of my life," Mulvey tells Liane Hansen for Weekend Edition Sunday, as they talk at the very spot where the album was recorded.

It comes down to the relationship between performer and audience, and there are few places where that relationship is closer, or more honest, than in a subway tunnel.

"Phillip Glass called music a sublime currency between people," Mulvey says. "Here, that exchange happens utterly openly."

Learning to be a musician in a subway tunnel may have its drawbacks, but those very drawbacks are what have made Mulvey a better musician, he says. Through repetition, "you learn what works." He compares the process with the movies Groundhog Day and Waiting for Godot, where the theme is painful repetition and the lessons learned from it. "The train always comes -- it always interrupts your best moment." It makes him feel, he says "like a Zen monk kneeling in the snow" while his master beats him with a stick. Eventually, "you just let go."

And that's when the magic happens. You can hear it on the new album -- amid the trains moving and people murmuring in the background, the songs, while often ragged, come alive with a freshness and spontaneity that's rarely achieved in a recording studio.

Most of the songs were cut in one or two takes. In the subway, he says, "you're forced to pay less attention to detail, and I think that's a very good thing. Feel is a lot more important than accuracy."


Other resources

Peter Mulvey's homepage.

The Wicked Good Guide to Boston subway stories from Boston Online.

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