Glen Hansard, 1970 – 2026
- missevegolden
- 16 hours ago
- 1 min read
Irish singer and songwriter Glen Hansard died on July 29 in a motorcycle crash (doctors don’t call those things “organ donor delivery systems” for nothing). He was 56. Hansard was the frontman of the hit Irish rock group The Frames; he was also one-half of the folk-duo The Swell Season, with pianist Markéta Irglová, and performed a solo act as well. Hansard was a singer, also playing the guitar, piano and mandolin; starting his career busking, he formed The Frames in 1990, eventually selling four top-ten albums, and winning an Oscar for “Falling Slowly,” which was heard in the 2007 film Once. He also performed, as guitar player Outspan Foster, in the 1991 film The Commitments, also acting in The Simpsons, Once, and Cyrano. Hansard told writer Anthony Breznican, “Having a guitar is like having a key to the world. It’s an amazing way to get to know a town. You take out a guitar on any street in any city in the world and start playing, you’re going to end up at some party, you’re going to end up in someone’s apartment, you’re going to end up in some bar.” (I found that being young and cute had the same results). He is survived by his wife, Finnish poet Maire Saaritsa, and their son.
