MacD On Music: (Definitely Not A) Waste of Time

The Derry music scene has been hard at work this year, pumping out one brilliant release after another.

If you’ve been reading this column regularly, you’ll have a pretty good idea of who’s had what come out so I’m not going to repeat it yet again. There’s also plenty more to come in the final quarter of the year, trust me.

This week I’m talking to one of Derry’s fastest rising stars, the incredible Cora Harkin. March this year saw the release of Cora’s debut single, ‘Glad I Got Away’, and this past Friday saw the release of the follow up, ‘Waste of Time’ (produced by Jessica Hammond in Black Studios).

Cora has been a staple of the local music scene for a few years now, playing gigs alongside the likes of Parker (whose debut album, ‘Never Let This Go’, is available now in Cool Discs), Boy M5 and TRAMP.

I met up with Cora this week to discuss the new single: “It’s another one that I wrote about a boy. It was inspired by a relationship I had with a dude. I wrote it about a week after the breakup because I got sacked, so it was kind of a therapeutic way to get over it.

“We went to the studio in August to record it and originally the track was an indie rock track, and then we realised that we wanted to go down more of a pop-y route for this one, to see how it would do.

“It’s really different from ‘Glad I Got Away’. It’s not the same genre at all but I like it. It was originally four and half minutes long.

“There was dialogue in the middle. It was a pure indie rock track, now it’s cut down to two minutes ten seconds, for radio play and stuff like that.”

Next, we jumped back to ‘Glad I Got Away’, and the reception it’s had so far: “‘Glad I Got Away’ got a pretty good response. I’d go up the town and I’d have wains screaming ‘Glad I Got Away’ at me, and I don’t know if they’re doing it as a joke or not, but they’ve definitely seen it on TikTok.

I was in Primark last week and some wee girl came up to me and said, ‘I love your song ‘Glad I Got Away’’ and it was just wholesome.

TikTok definitely did help promote it, and a lot of people, especially my peers, are very aware of the song and I think it did quite well.

“The thing with ‘Glad I Got Away’ as well is people either really, really enjoy it, or people make a meme out of it.

Obviously, someone your age doing music and releasing isn’t that common among people here. I’d be doing gigs, and even at my launch night, which was a week before the song was released, and there were people in the audience singing that song back to me word for word. Word. For. Word.”

After that, Cora told me a bit about who she likes at the minute on the local scene: “I absolutely love TRAMP and CHERYM. I absolutely adore CHERYM. I did that music hothouse. Obviously, I’d listened to them before I did it, but Hannah [Richardson, singer/guitarist for CHERYM] was my mentor for it, and I was completely starstruck the entire week. It was honestly the best week ever. I absolutely love CHERYM.”

“There’s another band, Humanitas, who are really good. They’re pretty new on the scene. I’ve played along with them and they’re absolutely phenomenal. I supported Lavengro in the summer too. There’s so many local artists that I really look up to, like Reevah, as well. Reevah and Roe and all, I really look up to them, because they’re doing very well for themselves.”

Finally, we moved onto the artwork for ‘Waste of Time’: “The cover art was done by my friend Shayna Rodgers. She did that for me and she’s not getting as much love as she deserves.”

And that’s it from Cora. ‘Waste of Time’ is out now and available on all good streaming platforms. Go listen. It definitely won’t be a waste of time.

Now, onto other business. CHERYM will be playing Sandino’s this Saturday in what is guaranteed to be one of the best gigs of the year, with support from Parker and TomCat.

As of this writing, tickets are very almost sold out, so (if you still can) get them while possible. You won’t regret it.

Finally, onto the socials. Cora Harkin can be found on Instagram and TikTok @coraharkinmusic (for both), and for those looking for something more visual, Shayna Rodgers can be found on Instagram @shaynadrawstuff.