Theme from Harry's Game - Remastered

Written and recorded by the Irish folk group Clannad, this atmospheric Gaelic ballad was the theme song to the 1982 British miniseries Harry's Game. The group already had several albums under their belt, but "Harry's Game" brought them international acclaim and cemented their signature sound: ethereal vocal harmonies and haunting melodies backed by layers of synth and electronic instrumentation.

Clannad is a family band that formed in the '70s and started making waves in their homeland for their unorthodox approach to traditional music. Moya Brennan, who founded the group with her siblings and uncles, explained: "Gaelic songs were sung unaccompanied, so what we were doing was sacrilege. The only time you were really allowed to add instruments to singing in Gaelic way back, was the harp, and I wasn't playing the harp like that. So we were kind of regarded as being traitors." While Gaelic purists hated them, contemporary artists didn't understand them. "People thought it was a bit mad that we were singing Gaelic songs," Moya recalled. "People used to say to us, 'Listen, you'll not get anywhere doing that.'" When a folk revival took hold in Ireland, however, folks were more welcoming to their contemporary take on tradition. With another sibling added to the lineup, the soon-to-be-famous New Age singer Enya, Clannad got even bolder with their sound, trading traditional acoustic instruments for synthesizers, horns, and electric pianos. In 1982, sans Enya, they got a new record deal with RCA.

Just before they signed with RCA, Clannad caught the attention of novelist Gerald Seymour, whose best-selling book Harry's Game was being made into a British miniseries. The story centered on a British spy who went undercover in Northern Ireland during the violent conflict known as The Troubles. Clannad was hesitant to get involved with anything political, but they liked the film's message about the futility of killing. Seymour initially wanted to use Clannad's Scottish-Gaelic tune "Mhorag's Na Horo Gheallaidh" as the theme, but the band thought Irish-language lyrics would be more appropriate for the story. They took inspiration from an Irish proverb that roughly translates as "Everything that is and was will cease to be."