“Stop asking musicians what they think he said softly as poured himself a second drink And outside, the world slipped over the brink”
Frank’s back! He’s angry man. Frank has some stuff to say. He doesn’t have all the answers. But what he does have to say makes a lot of sense. Last time Frank released a single, I posted that I had concerns he’d gone all grown up and middle of the road.
I said I wasn’t ready for a mild mannered Frank Turner. I needn’t have worried.
“The first time was a tragedy the second time its a farce”
He’s been a punk rock front man in the hardcore world. He’s more famously and more recently been a folk rock icon. Both of those genres lend themselves very well to making protest music.
One opinion that has circled the alternative music scene during the tumultuous political times is ‘at least all this trouble and injustice will inspire some good music’. It’s a bit like saying ‘I don’t mind the damage the bullet did because I’ll get a cool scar’. Well if that’s all we’ve got to be happy about. Let’s forego happy for a bit. Let’s be angry and agitated and active instead. Working for happy as the end goal.
“If I was of the greatest generation I’d be pissed seeing the world we’d build slip back in to this, I’d be screaming at my Grandkids we already did this”
Frank’s got a bit of a point, but he’s also lensing it through a different angle to most. The trouble with the UK and the EU has been boiled down to a young vs. old debate in the media. The Dreamers in the US seem to be battling the elder establishment of post WWII America not it’s youth. When it comes to those tiki-torch wielding polo shirts marching with Trump’s ‘very fine people’ then Frank may have hit his mark.
“The world is burning with a brand new light and it isn’t one that makes me feel warm.”
So he can see what’s wrong. He can point out that ‘This is all fucked’ but Frank can answer with nothing but frustration. there’s no political strategy or ‘all join hands’ platitudes here just… “Outside it’s 1933 so I’m hitting the bar”
Rock stars seldom have the solution to the worlds ills. No more than actors or celebrities or reality TV stars do. And nor should they be expected to. But they do have a microphone.
“Don’t go mistaking your house burning down for the dawn”
Steve For The Deaf 