“Brass in Pocket”

“Brass in Pocket” is a song in the improvised disco at the Water’s Edge Hotel, where its familiar melody briefly lets the people gathered there dance together as the flood advances. The moment makes the song part of a set built on recognition and memory, even as the surrounding scene remains precarious.

Place in the Disco

The narrator chooses old favorites, including Abba, The Pretenders, and Bryan Adams, then returns to the function room and announces that the group might as well have a disco. “Brass in Pocket” is one of the songs they dance to, between the slow, sensual dancing to “Chiquitita” and the exuberant response to “Summer of ’69.” Its position in the sequence gives the evening a shared musical rhythm rather than making it a solitary recollection.

Nostalgia and Contrast

The song prompts wet-eyed nostalgia: those dancing still know the old steps, and the narrator describes 1979 as feeling almost like yesterday. That backward-looking ease contrasts with the immediate circumstances. Seven sheep are bobbing in a rowing boat on the waters of Killary; soon the flood reaches halfway up the stairs, while objects float through the lobby below. The song does not resolve the danger; it marks the temporary, communal reprieve people make within it.

Narrative Significance

“Brass in Pocket” belongs to a deliberately familiar playlist, and its effect depends on recognition: the dancers can return to old steps together while the hotel’s surroundings change around them. In the flood episode, this ordinary pop song helps hold celebration and threat in the same scene. The disco continues even as the rising water makes the limits of that celebration plain.