Ian Doyle has been a well-respected musician in the Irish industry for a long while. He has played alongside some of Ireland's most famous musicians for years, so it's no surprise he's had a breakout year with his solo project, The Man Whom.
The Man Whom's latest single "Nothing Gained" is an understated, quietly beautiful folk track written about working through difficult times. Doyle wrote it "in the middle of the last recession in Ireland when its full effects had become apparent." Of the inspiration for the track, Doyle writes: "I watched families separated by debt, and unemployment as fathers or mothers travelled to Dubai, Canada, America, Europe and the US in search of work leaving their families behind, raising their children over Skype and visiting twice a year for two weeks. Many relationships didn't survive."
Yet, amid all the struggles and the sea of endless hopeless material out there today, "Nothing Gained" has a remarkably hopeful quality about it. "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" is the constant don't-give-up refrain.
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