Tag: donny iris

I’d forgotten all about it. Now I can’t stop hearing it.

In 1980, I was in high school in a teeny tiny deep ruby red evangelical town just south of the Mason-Dixon line with no inkling that I would ever be able to get out. At the time I assumed the future was headed toward Washington, DC. Not anything to do with politics, but because that was the closest actual city and where most of our cable TV stations were located.

We did, however, get KDKA Pittsburgh where Dad and I would watch baseball on rare occasions back in the ‘We Are Family’ era – but that is another story.

I had no clue who Donnie Iris was.

In 2026, I’ve lived in the greater Pittsburgh area for over 30 years. A native told me recently “Well, I guess that makes you a lifer now.” It’s official. Pittsburgh is my home town.

But if you said Donnie Iris to me I thought he was ruffled tuxedos and 50s doo-wop or something.

Apparently, I was very wrong.

When news of Iris’ passing hit social media, l learned my husband and brother-in-law had actually met and chatted with him one day waiting in line at a golf course. My dudes have highly developed bullshit detectors so I’m certain that Donny was as friendly, genuine and engaging of a human as local legend would have him to be.

Then the local TV news played Ah Leah.

I had no idea that was the name of THAT song. I had no idea it had a Pittsburgh connection. And it’s been earworming for 24 hours and I’m glad.

I remember really liking the song. It was more popular on our local FM station than it was nationally from the amount of air play it got. Probably because of the Pittsburgh thing, since the ‘burgh was only a couple of hours farther away than DC, just in the opposite direction. We were almost western Maryland, and western Maryland is almost KD country. I had no idea what the song was called or who did it and chalked it up to some hair band the locals liked and went on my merry way ferreting out as much UK post-punk alternative music as I could find.

That was a long time ago and I’d totally forgotten the song – until yesterday, when the dots were connected.

I have no emotional connection to the song Ah Leah, and no emotional connection or affinity for Donnie Iris or his music. But if Steve Jobs put a ding in the universe, Donny Iris put a full-on dent in the Pittsburgh music scene.

Remember how we’ve talked here and posted readings around the COVID lock-down about intuitive energy resonance and how sometimes it’s hard to tell your own emotions from very strong collective energies. When the collective is afraid, it’s helpful to reinforce your own energy boundaries. It is important to know the difference between what is you, and what is you vibrating in resonance with that outside zeitgeist. Intuitive resonance works just like the literal sound resonance:

But then there are times like this. Sometimes the resonance is something amazing. Sometimes its an honor to share in the collective.

I am deeply and profoundly grateful for landing here. I’ve almost said yinz a couple of times and have actually used the word slippy in a sentence. It’s been and honor to sense this energy and clairaudiantly revisit Ah Leah for the past day.

It has no concrete, objective, outer cause or reason for it other than a few passing tributes on TV and social media. I’m absolutely certain it isn’t a personal connection. It is totally a resonant energy: It is loud, local and really rather beautiful.

There is an underlying layer that feels like a little hitch of sadness and loss, like the passing of any beloved celebrity. Think David Bowie, or those of us who turned everything we could purple when Prince passed in 2016, or those of us who stood silent and still for a gobsmacked moment when we heard about Ozzie Osbourne or …. insert your favorite now-gone figure here.

Far stronger, far bigger, far louder there is an energy that is best described as a celebration of life. Pittsburgh is uplifting one of its own in a big joyous way. It’s Pittsburgh being its most Pittsburgh in a big way. If you know, you know.

“Collective upliftment” comes to mind.

I raise my coffee mug to you, Pittsburgh and to all of your talented inhabitants, here and gone.