The news hit the music world on Wednesday morning without warning: Glen Hansard is dead. The Irish singer and songwriter died in the early morning hours in a motorcycle accident not far from his hometown of Dublin. He was 56 years old.

Hansard spent decades on stage as frontman of the band The Frames, but he became known to a wider audience through the film musical Once. For Falling Slowly, the song from the film that he co-wrote, he received an Oscar.

Hansard's colleagues are finding personal words on social media. U2 singer Bono published a long essay on X about his compatriot, which begins with the sentence: Sometimes I wondered if Glen Hansard really existed...

It's followed by a memory of a man who never left behind his beginnings as a street musician: He really was who you thought he was. He couldn't pass a person living on the street without making sure they were okay... and more than that, he worked very hard to ensure fewer people had to live on the street at all.

Bono attests to Hansard having an angelic presence and closes his text with these words: For me, he'll always be there wherever I see a coin drop into an open guitar case.

Springsteen and Costello remember shared evenings

Bruce Springsteen also spoke out. The two met many years ago in Ireland, the American rocker wrote on social media. He was always nothing but a great musician, a good friend and a generous, kind man, it says there. Always positive, smiling and ready to sing.

Elvis Costello expressed his deepest condolences to Hansard's family and friends with an Instagram post, in light of this terribly sad news. They had rarely been on stage together: We only sang together a few times, but I always enjoyed seeing his face and hearing his voice.

Costello remembers one evening particularly well, namely a concert at the Royal Albert Hall on the occasion of the first state visit by an Irish president to Great Britain. I will never forget that incredible evening, he wrote, when Hansard and folk musician Donal Lunny led the assembled choir.

Josh Groban described the Irishman on Instagram as an absolute gem of a man. As pure an artist's soul as there ever was, and a spirit of kindness that always took precedence over his immense talent.

Falling Slowly was the first song Finneas sang on stage

How far Hansard's influence reached is shown by the family of probably the biggest pop stars of the present day. Billie Eilish's brother, Finneas O'Connell, reports on Instagram that Falling Slowly was his very first appearance on stage at the age of eleven. His songs made me want to write songs myself, and they made me cry, he wrote.

In 2019, the family met him in Dublin: He greeted us like old friends, even though we were just his fans. Today I'm a fan with a broken heart. I hope he knew how much he meant to so many, how much he meant to me.

His mother Maggie Baird, who is also Billie Eilish's mother, wrote on Instagram that Hansard had been a force in our lives, she was devastated for his family and for all of us whom he changed so much. The film had deeply moved the family: I know that Finneas and Billie wouldn't be who they are without his music.

Billie had sung all the songs from the film, in 2013 the family made a pilgrimage to a Hansard performance at the Grammy Museum and couldn't stop being amazed. She had shot her own film inspired by Once. She last saw him last fall at the Greek Theatre. He had so many concerts planned and a three-year-old child!

Hozier: Completely surreal

Hozier also wrote in a longer obituary on Instagram that Hansard's significance went far beyond that of a Dublin musician whose work was loved internationally. He had been a central part of Irish storytelling, on stage, on screen and on the street for as long as many of us can remember.

Hansard was so inseparably connected to the breath of Irish music and especially to Dublin, that it feels completely surreal to imagine that he's no longer supposed to be with us. And: This man gave a remarkable amount of himself to the song, to his concerts, to the city he loved, and to a community of musicians who loved and admired him deeply.