CMAT’S REFLECTIVE NEW SINGLE ‘Euro-Country’ MAKES DEFIANT STATEMENT ON IRISH POLITICAL LANDSCAPE

CMAT turned heads in British households on New Year’s Eve last year, crawling across the floor during her unusual but unequivocally joyous performance of her track Have Fun on Jools Holland’s Annual Hootenanny.

It was her eccentricity and her iconic no-f*cks-given attitude – ‘But I don’t care, I don’t care; so have fun!’ – that made her stand out from the crowd. But no one could have predicted what was to come next for the Irish pop star.

Since then, CMAT – short for Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson – has announced a bold new studio album titled Euro-Country, gained an international following on social media with her viral hit Take A Sexy Picture Of Me, and performed a highly sought after Pyramid Stage slot at Glastonbury to widespread critical acclaim.

Now, CMAT has released the album’s title track – a defiant statement about her home country’s political landscape.

The track, full of symbolism, mourns the loss of Ireland’s ‘Celtic Tiger’ era – a time of rapid economic growth, where unemployment was at an all-time low and living standards had dramatically increased. However, the Celtic Tiger ‘fell’ with the global market crash of 2008, leaving the working class without stable jobs or money to support their families.

CMAT, only a child at the time, lived through this period of economic collapse and confusion, and this track is her way of finally acknowledging it.

The song begins with a soft, eerie synth and CMAT starts singing in Irish – an ode to her cultural identity. It’s sparse. With no other accompaniment, the introduction is raw and quietly devastating:

Cad is gá dom a dhéanamh mura bhfuil mé ag bualadh leat?
Tá ceann folamh agam, yah, agus pearsantacht nua
Eirím níos dofheicthe, is tú imithe, ó mo shaol
Níl aon rud fágtha sa scátháin
An mbeidh mé álainn mhaol?

Translated into English, CMAT sings:

What do I have to do if I’m not meeting you?
I have an empty head, yah, and a new personality
I become more invisible, with you gone, from my life
There’s nothing left in the mirror
Will I be beautiful bald?

A poetic reflection on identity, loss, and grief.

CMAT’s question – ‘Will I be beautiful bald?’ – reveals her confusion and uncertainty for the future. What does the future hold when there’s nothing left – no money, no job, no clear path forward?

The build to the chorus eventually reveals a powerful drum-beat – a symbol of hope, and an opportunity for CMAT to hold the power in her hands and take control of her trauma.

The song has a tone difficult to put words to – it’s danceable, rooted in pop, but carries a strange and unsettling eeriness, completely appropriate for this type of protest song. It invites you to question it. To ponder it. To consume it.

In the bridge, CMAT recalls ‘I was 12 when the da’s started killing themselves all around me’ – an uncomfortable, heart-breaking reminder of how serious the situation in Ireland was.

Faced with the loss of their roles as family breadwinners, many men struggled with feelings of shame and despair, contributing to a rise in suicides. The National Suicide Research Foundation has reported that the suicide rate in males was 57% higher in Ireland than it would have been if the recession did not happen.

CMAT blames those who had the power and money: ‘all the big boys, all the Berties’, a nod to the upper-class elite who were bailed out of their poor finances, and a nod to Bertie Ahern, Taoiseach during the Celtic Tiger era, who was implicated in financial controversies detailed in the Mahon Tribunal.

The overarching theme of the song can be summed up in one lyric: ‘I wish we weren’t this way’.

CMAT bears all in this new single – confronting uncomfortable truths about her country’s past and her own experience growing up in its aftermath.

In Euro-Country, CMAT joins the ranks of artists who turn personal turmoil into generational anthems. She’s more than just a ‘quirky singer’, but a fearless songwriter too – unafraid to speak her mind in order to make sense of it all.

CMAT will release her upcoming studio album, Euro-Country, on the 29^th of August. You can pre-order the album here.

She will also head out on a sold-out UK/EU tour run this October.

Reflecting on the LP, CMAT says: “EURO-COUNTRY is, I think, the best thing I have ever made. I felt halfway through recording it was the most important record I’ve made for myself… mainly because it was making me go crazy.

“I’m always going to make the work I want to make, because there is a little gremlin in my head that tells me if it’s shit. More than success, there’s a bigger gremlin that wants me to make music that’s really good. She’s brutal and has ruined my life at times, but she is the keeper of my life and she’s always right.”

Text Copyright 2025 © Kyle Horne/ADRENALINE Magazine.

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