Singer Songwriters and Frank Turner.

Update 25.2.11: At last Frank Turner will be touring Australia in his own show in April, I was lucky enough to see him as part of the fantastic ‘Hot Water Music’ group tour and the few songs he performed there were pretty damn good! Information here. I’ve now also listened, a lot, to all his albums – and they’re all great.

As is evident in my earlier post about the politics of the personal and music I am a firm believer in the power of the personal story to move, amuse, effect change or provoke thought, set the story to music and that power is maximised.

Whether fronting a band or sitting on a stool strumming, the singer/songwriter or solo performer creates a far more intimate one to one connection with the listener or audience. I prefer the sound of Ryan Adams when he plays with The Cardinals and Steve Earle when he plays with The Dukes, both amazing bands – but the focus remains front and centre. Its their words and their voice I want to hear, and the relationship I have as a listener/admirer is with the man not the band. This can, in the case of bratty geniuses like Ryan Adams, grumps like Neil Young and Bob Dylan or dead people like Jeff Buckley, Gram Parsons, Joe Strummer and Johnny Cash be somewhat fraught with tension or sadness.

The singer songwriter with whom you bond can be a wonderful and inspiring companion, but I am at a loss to really quantify what separates the few I love from the many I just find blah. If you want to start an argument in a pub amongst a group of music lovers, begin a discussion on who are the ‘best’ singer songwriters. For example, despite the fanaticism displayed by several friends, and despite being a contemporary, I never really got or got into Nick Cave – apart from the couple of extraordinary songs, like Mercy Seat or Into Your Arms which, OK, I agree, explain his place in the scheme of things. Live, I find him to be a self indulgent wanker with an awesomely good and very tolerant band. Bob Dylan similarly divides people (I love him) and I once fell out with a dear friend for almost a year because he persisted in disliking Billy Bragg, who of course, in my opinion can’t be faulted and is not to be criticised despite a dodgy voice and a habit of bashing you around the head with his ideals and opinions.

Is Jimi Hendrix a singer/songwriter? I’d say yes, and unlike others (with maybe the exception of some of Neil Young’s tracks) his music and guitar is what grips my soul first and then with time the lyrics follow – well the ones that are comprehensible, the others just set your soul free.

Honesty is a must, according to Australian Idol you have to believe in what you sing about to sell records. I’d go one further and say I prefer people to sing about what they have lived and experienced and really care about – Johnny Cash or Hank Williams being the classic examples that spring to mind. People singing other people’s songs confuse the issue for me though, I love Ryan Adams’ version of Wonderwall.. but does that mean I’m an Oasis fan because the words speak to me – or is it just Adams who brings them to life? Someone new can change the whole meaning of a song, like Johnny Cash again, his rendering of Hurt, especially with that video clip brings me to tears every time and whatever meaning the song had for Trent Reznor has been wiped from my mind.

Someone like KD Lang has it all, the heavenly voice, the beautiful turn of musical and lyrical phrase and the conviction that transports the listener to another world, she can make anyone’s words her own. On the other hand, Billy Bragg and Joe Strummer, two of my heroes, are definitely at their best singing their own material. Voices not so great, music pretty simple, with or without a band, it doesn’t really matter – there is something that reaches directly into my mind as if the words had been written for me.. and indeed, being almost a direct contemporary, they might well have been. Their musical and lyrical journeys reflect my own, from anger and idealism to introspection, to grappling with life, politics and relationships as one moves into middle age.

Which brings me to British singer/songwriter Frank Turner, who has captured my attention to the point where I have just finished playing his album Love, Ire and Song for the 6th time in a row. In his late 20’s, he is politically from the left and has more in common biographically with Strummer than Billy Bragg – coming from an upper middle class background and then sliding from a hardcore band in his case to being a solo performer.

He writes more about life than politics, but politics are implicit and present in his songs. I have only, so far, heard the one album – and I see there is a more recent and earlier releases, but the impression I have is that he has reached that point of life when the realisation that passion and anger are not enough to change the world hits home, when friends either die or move on to suburbia, suits and sameness; when loneliness may no longer be assuaged by wild nights but a one night stand is still exciting enough to make settling down look boring. In short, its that time we all went through (or will go through) where you begin to question everything: your past, your future, your world, your friends and what the hell the point of you exactly is.

Playing Strummer’s last album – The Mescalero’s Streetcore, straight after Turner’s Love Ire and Song or any of Bragg’s albums, underlines the similarities in voice and sentiment. It’s the little things these guys notice, personal reactions to things are often wittily relayed, and the examination of oneself, one’s peers and the times is honest but never sickly or self indulgent.

Thoughts and observations are encapsulated in cleverly chosen words that paint a picture rather than spell out the whole bloody story. Strummer, looking back on events of his life (Coma Girl) and Turner looking forward to maturity and fighting against being forced to ‘grow up’ (Photosynthesis). Billy Bragg released ‘Talking with the taxman about poetry’ at about the same age Turner is now, and ‘Greetings to the New Brunette’ and ‘Wishing the Days away’ seem come from the same place in a young man’s life.

As with many of his peers, and unlike a young Bragg or Strummer, Turner is not especially angry, but he does have the bouncy phrasing and way with words of Billy Bragg and a better voice than either of them. As with the bard from Barking, I like Turner’s wordplay, the conciseness of his lyrics, and the way the music is just enough.. catchy and tuneful and thankfully not over indulgent or overwrought. Its singalong or quietly melancholy stuff rather than the soaring heights of Lang or Buckley, and there is little of the self indulgence but some of the self examination of Adams.

There are moments on the album that made me wish I was 28 again, and moments that make me glad I’m not, lyrics that make me feel guilty for not achieving my potential and sometimes settling for mediocrity, and songs that bring back bittersweet memories of dead friends and long nights in pubs solving the problems of the world.

So there you have it, my version of an album review, with rather too many comparisons to do justice to the uniqueness of Turner, apologies for that. Have a listen, maybe you’ll like it, maybe you won’t, I’d love to know what you think.

I’m hoping he will tour here soon so I can see the live Frank Turner. My guess is he will be more the avuncular, have a beer with the punters type than the grumpy loner or tortured artist, but who knows, maybe he’ll play with the lights out and flounce off stage like Ryan Adams.

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