Dean Owens is, of course, no stranger to these pages. With twelve albums and numerous AUK awards behind him, a search on this site will provide pages of reviews, interviews and videos. Typing the name Michael Marra into the same search bar, however, will provide exactly zero references. Now, the fact that Marra died in 2012 may have something to do with that, of course. Another reason may just be that Marra is one of those singer-songwriters whose talents somehow fail to register far from their native home.
The fact that Owens wrote a song referencing Marra should say something of the regard with which he was held in his native Scotland. Born in Dundee in 1952, it was supporting Barbra Dickson at the height of her chart success in 1980 that first introduced Marra to a wider audience. He had signed to the same Polydor label as Dickson, who, in her programme notes for that tour, stated that “Michael Marra is an artist of immense talent and destined for stardom in the near future.” That tour comprised almost fifty venues through the UK, so it was the perfect vehicle for Marra to promote his album The Midas Touch.
Marra always gently dismissed any notions that he stood above commercial ambitions in any way, saying that “nobody ever makes a record without believing it’s going to be a hit“, but he was astute enough to recognise that his essentially old-fashioned style, clever narrative songwriting and understated theatrical manner was not what the pop industry was looking for anymore.
He did, however, establish a strong reputation in a curious byway of professional music, being an opening act for headline bands. He fell out with Polydor and his manager and returned to Scotland, throwing himself into theatre, which remained a passion throughout his life, and working on an emergent music scene in Dundee. In 2007 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Dundee, and in 2011 an honorary D.Litt by Glasgow Caledonian University. He continued writing and performing to the end of his life, despite suffering from throat cancer.
In his sleeve notes for the song, taken from 2015’s Into The Sea album, Owens writes “This song came to me in a dream around about the time that Scottish singer-songwriter Michael Marra passed away. In the dream Michael was sitting at the piano singing a song, and this was the melody he was singing. There were no words I could remember apart from ‘it’ll all work out’ and the name Sally stuck in my head for some reason. Around that time, I’d gone for a wander through the old neighbourhood where I grew up. There was a housing scheme [project] called The Fort that had been my playground. It had recently been knocked down. Some of the characters from my childhood make an appearance in this song. The Jimmy mentioned here is Jimmy Love, who ran Fort Boys Club and who gave me and my band our first place to make some noise in”.
With its haunting piano at its heart, Sally’s Song (I Dreamed Of Michael Marra) says everything about Owen’s ability to write poignant songs with lyrics that speak from the heart; “They’re tearing down The Fort today, all the soldiers ran away, what happened to the families, outnumbered by the junkies. I saw you in a dream last night, you said you’d given up the fight, I held you in my arms so tight, till you stopped crying.” Sally, Jimmy and Michael are all referenced, but the closing lines say, more than anything, just how much Marra meant to Owens and his contemporaries. “Michael passed away today, bid farewell to his family. It’s a fucking tragedy, another good man’s gone.”
At the Dundee service for Michael Marra, it was reported that hundreds of mourners gathered to pay their respects to one of Scotland’s most prolific songwriters. During the committal, there was applause and cheering from those gathered at the crematorium, as a recording of Marra’s song All Will Be Well was played. Among the mourners were Deacon Blue’s Ricky Ross and singer-songwriter Rab Noakes, the same Rab Noakes who first brought Marra to the attention of Dickson and Polydor all those years before.
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