The 4 of us

In the closing years of the 1980s, a major record company signed the Four of Us, stirring the interest of talent scouts who hoped to locate another act on the scale of U2. Beyond their shared Irish origins, the Four of Us bear scant resemblance to those globally celebrated musicians. The ensemble took shape in Newry, Ireland, where brothers Brendan Murphy on vocals and Declan Murphy on guitar supplied its driving force. Brendan launched the project with his sibling during law studies, only to abandon his degree later and commit himself fully to songwriting and performance. Although scarcely noticed in the United States, the Four of Us stand among Ireland’s most commercially accomplished rock outfits. Their inaugural album, Songs for the Tempted, surfaced in 1989. The single “Mary,” a pointed depiction of domestic abuse whose title referenced a girl Brendan once admired, climbed straight to No. 1 on the Irish charts. That success propelled Songs for the Tempted to double-platinum certification in Ireland and earned it Best Album of the Year honors at the Irish Music Awards. The Four of Us thereby entered the wider pop market without losing their dedicated student audience. Even so, after the 1992 release of Man Alive, which Q Magazine placed among that year’s Top 50 albums, the group slipped from mainstream attention. They ended their association with Sony and withdrew from the studio after three fruitless years spent on an unfinished third album. Classified Personal signaled their reappearance in 1999. Commercial momentum returned in 2003 with the single “Sunlight,” which received extensive airplay and favorable notices despite remaining unavailable for purchase until the following year on the album Heaven & Earth. The Four of Us financed these recordings independently and licensed them to EMI for distribution.