“Echoes from the 1970s”

Dear Editor,

Referring to Frank McNally’s column “A gloomy trend in half a century of pop music” that was published in An Irishman’s Diary on the 29th of March, I wonder if he’d concur that nothing could induce a more immediate plunge into melancholy than tunes like “Nobody’s Child” sung by Hank Snow, Lonnie Donegan, and the like, not even the music of Leonard Cohen?

Best regards,
Patrick Howlin,
Dublin 14.