That we live in an especially precarious world right now should be obvious to everyone, yet it's strange that dissenting musical voices seem so thin on the ground in response. In most cases, those who have chosen to make a stand (Neil Young, Manic Street Preachers) are long-standing anti-establishment firebrands, while it seems most young bands still care more about their haircuts and snaffling the front cover of the NME than standing up and shouting “fuck this for a game of soldiers.”
Similar thoughts seem to have been percolating in the mind of MICHAEL WESTON KING of late. Although he has seen plenty of front-line action in the singer/ songwriter wars over the past two decades, he's been one of the most eloquent voices of protest in recent times and his back catalogue has found him tackling prickly subjects like senility ('The Girl Who Got Away') and the Dunblane massacre ('The Sun Won't Shine Today') with a grace and dignity that's rare amongst contemporary performers.
Consequently, if I had to choose a voice of sanity to cut through the lunacy right now, I'd vote for Weston King. And I'd be rewarded accordingly, for his new album 'I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier' is a real old-fashioned record full of Protest Songs, this term to be daubed in mandatory Capital Letters. Crucially, though, it's anything but a trip down memory lane of the sake of it. The sentiments remain every bit as relevant today even if some of the subject matter reaches back almost a hundred years.
The album's title track is a contender for one of the earliest protest songs ever written. The words date back to the World War One trenches of 1915 and were written by Alfred Bryan, a contemporary of the likes of Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. In Weston King's safe hands, it's transformed into an impossibly tender piano ballad and its' pointed lyrical content (“who dares to put a rifle on his shoulders to shoot some other mother's darling boy”) is undeniably affecting.
Elsewhere, Weston King's self-written material brings us bang up to date when he writes of the horrors of contemporary conflicts. The steely and outspoken 'In Time' talks of the Obama administration attempting to clean up after Dubya's disastrous Iraqi campaign (“now the black knight in The White House is gonna clean up the mess”) though in theory it could just as easily refer to any British skirmish from Afghanistan to the Falklands. 'Hey Ma, I'm Coming Home', meanwhile, is a soldier's letter to his mother and could have been written by any number of hopeful young patriots who prematurely returned home from Afghanistan in a coffin (“It's time for me to get on the plane/ my box will soon be loaded with fifteen others that all look the same”). It features an unbearably poignant snatch of Paul Simon's 'Homeward Bound' and it's undoubtedly one of finest things MWK has ever put his name to.
|
Weston King also hi-jacks some cogent commentaries from performers who knew more than a little about hardship themselves. There weren't too many blacklists Phil Ochs wasn't on, but his songs 'Cops of the World' and 'Is There Anybody Here?' remain as resonant as ever when bequeathed to MWK. 'Cops of the World' is a scabrous, anti-American Imperialism diatribe (“our pistols are hungry and our tempers are short/ so bring your daughters round to the port”) while 'Is There Anybody Here?' is the hardest rocking set piece here and a fine vehicle for King's commanding voice and Paul Hesketh's stinging guitars.
Outside of war and slaughter, economic meltdown and its' social consequences are vividly evoked by 'Life Is Fine' and Sykes Roosevelt's 'High Price Blues'. Both are earthy, low-ridin' blues workouts, though their energetic executions are tempered by the desperation in their lyrics (“so I took that elevator sixteen floors above the ground/ I thought about my baby and I thought I would jump down” - 'Life is Fine') and the portraits they paint of decent people reaching the end of their tethers.
Throughout, Weston King's able musical lieutenants such as guitarist Paul Hesketh and pedal steel supremo Alan Cook make sublime contributions, yet it's fitting that the record ends with MWK alone with just acoustic guitar and harmonica, tackling Bobby Darin's 'Simple Song of Freedom' and investing it with all the quiet, redemptive power it deserves.
It would be tempting to view 'I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier' as a record by a modern day Woody Guthrie or Ramblin' Jack Elliott, but Michael Weston King has already spent twenty years proving he's way more versatile than your average acoustic-toting troubadour and he will probably branch out again the next time round. He has that rare ability to mix the personal with the socio-political and he always does it with poise. Once again he's treated us to an essential addition to his impressive body of work.
Michael Weston king online
Michael Weston King on Myspace
|
