Music inspired by lost toddler son helped ease songwriter's grief

Oscar McLennan's face lights up at the mention of his son Ian.

"He was a beautiful boy, " says the Glasgow songwriter, with a smile. "I'm biased but he was always happy - there was no nastiness or badness in him. He was a beautiful little character."

Ian was just three-years-old when he died in an accident at home in the winter of 2020, after a large kitchen unit fell on top of him.

It was through music that Oscar managed to cope with his grief, though he admits writing songs became impossible.

Instead he made an album of instrumental music, named Snow on the River after a line from Tam O'Shanter.

The Burns quotation held particular significance for Oscar, offering a reminder of the "fleeting nature of the joy of life".

When Oscar and his wife Erica welcomed Ian into the world, they were understandably filled with that joy.

They referred to him as a miracle, a child born when Oscar was already 60 and following fertility treatment.

"I remember saying I was too old for being a father, and a friend said to me 'well, you were too young before'", recalls Oscar, with a wry smile.

When Ian was a baby his father was focused on writing songs and monologues, continuing a nomadic career.

Oscar grew up in Glasgow's Penilee area before moving to London where he busked on the streets as a teenager.

Then came stints in a punk band, a folk act and a spell as part London's alternative comedy scene during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

There has also been a trio of books - one in Spanish - and various other projects.

However when Ian died, Oscar understandably could no longer find any words.

"It was devastating. I'm still devastated and that feeling carries on every day. There's not a day goes by that I don't think of him and miss him," he said.

"After it happened, I lost the power of words. They just seemed redundant as they couldn't express what I felt.

"But I turned to music, and it just started coming to me.

"I don't even know where it was coming from, so I started sending it to Martin (Tourish, a long-time friend and musician). He said it was beautiful."

Oscar began writing more music, which Martin took charge of arranging.

And so started Snow on a River, a collection of instrumental pieces featuring more than 30 musicians.

Making the album, and then performing it in several churches in Ireland last year, was an emotionally draining, yet also uplifting experience for Oscar.

He said: "The music helped me hugely. Whenever I was playing the music or working on the music I could feel Ian's presence. It was the only time I wasn't missing him."

The actor and comedian Kevin McAleer, best known to many as Uncle Colm in Derry Girls, has been friends with Oscar for years.

"He became very involved in the album and backed it. He said to me at one point -'you didn't write this music for Ian, you wrote it *with* Ian'.

"I'm not particularly religious, but I do feel this music came from another place."

One of the album tracks was played at the funeral of Oscar's own mother, who died last year aged 95.

It prompts a darkly comic remark from Oscar that the album has prompted people to request it for their own funeral.

"There's got to be a few hits on Spotify through that, at least," he said.

However the music itself is not maudlin, despite the circumstances that created it.

"There is pain and grief there, but also joy, to reflect the joy that Ian brought in his life and into our lives. It's full of space, it's very calming.

"An old woman at the end of the street told me she had listened to the album and felt the music was like walking into paradise, which is a beautiful thing to be told."

The music may have helped Oscar, but he and Erica found another reason to keep on going.

Two weeks after Ian's death, they discovered Erica was pregnant for a second time. Their daughter is now four.

"When that happened we didn't have the choice to give up anymore.

"The pain was so great, it would have been easier to throw in the towel, but we had to carry on."

Oscar lives near the Dolomites region in Italy, but will return to Scotland on Wednesday to perform the album, as part of the Celtic Connections festival, at Cottiers Theatre.

He sees the show - where he will be joined by several musicians who worked on the record - as being a personal homecoming, and he is a big supporter of events which offer diverse bills.

Oscar's own career has been free-wheeling - something he feels is increasingly hard to achieve.

"I don't think it's ever been easy doing stuff that's non commercial, but it has become progressively more difficult.

"I remember a conference of art creators, maybe in the late 80s and everyone was walking around with badges saying art means business. Urgh!

"That's what art has become, where you have to sell yourself all the time now.

"But there is always people who want to make original, creative material and nothing will stop them."

Oscar adds that his own future will be typically varied.

After everything he has been through in recent years, worrying about what is to come is no longer on his mind.

"When Ian was born I worried about things like being old when he would be a teenager, or dying when he was young.

"But I know now there is no point in worrying about what's around the corner.

"You never know what will happen in life."