Damien is one of the oldest Those Nervous Animals songs. In the summer of 1974, Padraig turned 18 and hitch-hiked to Mullingar. He had written a cheeky letter to Irish rock band royalty, Mr Dave Prim. Padraig recalls meeting the band and joining the entourage; it was the same night as a mass prisoner escape from Portlaoise by the IRA (Sunday August 18, 1974). The van encountered checkpoints every few miles of the road on the way back to the Dave Prim band base in Clonmel. Something of the atmosphere of leaving home was captured in the song Damien written a couple of years later in Sligo.

One of the members of the Dave Prim band, drummer Brian Despard, ended up playing on the August 1986 recording of Damien. This version of the song was produced by Donal Lunny, with Philip Begley engineering. It incorporates a riff and groove idea created by Eddie and Barry. We were not really into traditional music much, but all the band loved Planxty and we developed a great working relationship with Donal. Though Donal is famed for pushing the boundaries of his form, Damien must be one of his least traditional outings! He was introduced to Those Nervous Animals by Bill Whelan. The Sligo connection was through Kevin Flynn, who managed Planxty at one point, ran The Venue in Strandhill and organised the Ballisodare Folk Festival.

The cover of the single was designed by Barry Brennan. It features a photo of a school choir with Barry as a young lad after they won an award.

Daragh Connolly, who plays keyboards on this recording, writes: We had been playing this song as the encore at shows and it always went down a storm (At the time the live band was the trio plus myself, Brian Despard and Helen Walsh). Before we started Donal made the decision that Barry’s keyboard riff should be sequenced. I remember we hired a sequencer and, the night before the recording, I worked late finishing the sequence.

We recorded in Windmill 2 (which had just been vacated by Def Leppard!). Donal produced, Phillip Begley engineered. Eddie Lee's drum parts were programmed by John Donnelly: Brian Despard set up the cymbals and overdubbed them, and also played the kit from the breakdown to the end. Helen Walshe sang backing vocals. Live keyboards were played by myself [Daragh] and Barry (both playing at the same time for the outro). Donal programmed the very loud plane-taking-off sound!!

Afterwards we ended up in The Pink Elephant nightclub!