Bagatelle are celebrating the 40th anniversary of their hit Summer In Dublin this week but the iconic track was almost lost during a house move.
Released in May 1980, the song was an overnight success and catapulted the band into the spotlight two years after their formation in August 1978.
Penned and performed by Dundalk singer/songwriter Liam Reilly, the anthem has gone on to be one of the best-known Irish tunes.
However, there was a time when the song’s destiny looked very different.
Bass guitarist Ken Doyle revealed how Reilly, 65, nearly misplaced the track when he moved house as it was in a shoebox and was put aside.
Thankfully he recovered it and the love song to the capital, which was recorded in Battle Studio in Sussex, went straight to No1 and stayed in the Irish charts for the remainder of that summer.
It would be the first of six No1 hits and countless top 10 songs.
Doyle claims the track is a tearjerker for homesick expats at gigs all over the world.
He said previously: “Summer In Dublin is like an alternative anthem. Whenever we play abroad, even in Saudi Arabia, there’s always a huge emotional outpouring for that song which has found a place in the hearts of all Irish people.
“We sang it for the first time in Dungarvan around about 1980 and the response nowadays is still the same as it was that night and audiences bring the song to life every time.
“I never tire of playing the classics.
“They’re great songs and I regularly thank Liam Reilly from the stage for writing them.”
Bagatelle have shared the stage with the likes of Bob Marley, Van Morrison, U2, Thin Lizzy, Don McLean and The Pogues. Bono once stated the band inspired him and influenced his group. To date it is estimated there are more than 100 official cover versions of the song in Ireland, Canada, America, Australia and the UK.
Reilly said the words came to him easily as he described just one day in the capital.
He told a previous interview: “At the time I was living in an apartment on Leeson Street in Dublin and I did have to pick up my guitar as the song says.
“The bus to Dun Laoghaire comes into the song due to the fact I had to travel there to work.
“The line that goes, ‘I was singing a song I heard somewhere called Rock ‘N’ Roll Never Forgets’, is also part of something I experienced.
“It came after I went to see a Boomtown Rats gig and they did a cover version of a Bob Seger song and it had stuck in my mind as a great line.”
Reilly said the day he wrote the song the lyrics just “poured” out on to a page.
He added it was a hot summer day and the smells stayed with him when he put pen to paper.
