Declan O’Rourke has released For Free, the second single from his forthcoming eighth studio album Oceanic, recorded in Sydney with Midnight Oil’s Jim Moginie.
by Paul Cashmere
Declan O’Rourke has released For Free, the second single from his forthcoming eighth studio album Oceanic, due October 16. The song follows Echo and turns O’Rourke’s attention to family, mortality and the difficulty of expressing love while the people who matter are still here. Its accompanying video features members of O’Rourke’s family and was filmed between Dublin and Fremantle, connecting the two countries that have shaped his life and career.
For Free began as a song written for O’Rourke’s mother before expanding into something he recognised as applying more broadly to his family.
“It rings true for everyone in my gang,” O’Rourke says, describing a song built around a deceptively simple proposition: tell people you love them while there is still time to do so.
“We all know the day will come, and we’ll lose the ones we love the most. Or maybe they’ll lose us! So you wanna make dead sure they each know exactly how you feel about them.”
The sentiment gives For Free a personal centre, while the decision to frame the song around family makes it a natural continuation of the reflective approach O’Rourke has taken throughout his songwriting career.
The accompanying video, directed and edited by Wolff, uses members of O’Rourke’s own family and was filmed at locations in Dublin and Fremantle. Rather than constructing an elaborate narrative, the film focuses on everyday family interactions and the value of simply spending time together.
For Free was recorded in Sydney with Jim Moginie as co-producer. Moginie, a founding member of Midnight Oil, has maintained a long association with O’Rourke and brings an Australian dimension to an album that is explicitly connected to both sides of O’Rourke’s life.
O’Rourke describes Oceanic as a record that developed organically rather than following a predetermined plan.
“Oceanic somehow wrote, and then made itself too,” he says. “I’ve always felt that being an artist is a process of stripping away layers of yourself to get to the core. If that’s true, then Oceanic is a collection of dreams that have surfaced on their own, from among the deepest of my own layers.”
The Sydney sessions also represent a return to Australia for O’Rourke. He lived in Australia with his family as a teenager and received his first guitar at the age of 13 from a priest in Kyabram, Victoria. That experience eventually supplied the title for his debut album, Since Kyabram, released in 2004.
The album established O’Rourke in Ireland, debuting at No. 5 on the Irish albums chart and subsequently achieving double-platinum status. His second album, Big Bad Beautiful World, followed in 2007 and reached No. 4 in Ireland.
O’Rourke’s catalogue subsequently expanded through Mag Pai Zai in 2011, the monthly-song Howlin’ Lowly Moons project, Gold Bars in the Sun in 2015, In Full Colour in 2016 and Chronicles of the Great Irish Famine in 2017. His most recent studio album before Oceanic was Arrivals, released in 2021.
Throughout that period, O’Rourke has maintained connections with both Irish and international music communities. His songs have been recorded by artists including Eddi Reader, Josh Groban, Jacqui Dankworth, Peter Jöback and Christy Moore. Paul Weller has also publicly championed O’Rourke’s songwriting, including Galileo (Someone Like You) in a collection of favourite songs and performing the song with O’Rourke in London.
Australia has remained an important part of O’Rourke’s story. His early years in the country preceded a career centred largely on Ireland, while later Australian touring included performances in 2008 and 2009. The return to Sydney to make Oceanic therefore gives the new album a geographical as well as musical significance.
The album also extends a career that has repeatedly moved between intimate singer-songwriter work and larger-scale arrangements. In Full Colour, for example, revisited O’Rourke’s material with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and reached No. 3 on the Irish albums chart. Chronicles of the Great Irish Famine took another departure, presenting a song cycle developed over many years of historical research.
Oceanic now places O’Rourke’s attention on a more personal territory. For Free provides an early indication of that focus, using family as both subject and source material while the video brings his Irish and Australian connections together.
For Free is available now on streaming platforms, with Oceanic scheduled for release on October 16.
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