On the subject of Frank Turner

[kaberett]

Er, kab, said sgsabbage after my last post on the topic, do you actually like Frank Turner? I can't tell.

Well, something to that effect.

AHAHAHAHAHA, I said.

swaldman noted he'd liked I Still Believe (iirc) when it was performed at the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, or something (I was actually completely oblivious to the fact the guy was performing at that point, but then I was kind of screamingly crazy and also in Edinburgh at the time), but hadn't particularly cared for the others or found them memorable.

And that, you see, is the crux of the matter, and it is this: Frank Turner has written one good song and a lot of variations on it, and he's also written a lot of intensely misogynist bro-y crap. (For my go-to example of the latter, look up the lyrics to Worse Things Happen At Sea, which has content notes for threats of stalking and domestic violence.)

The good song, to be clear, is I Still Believe, and all the songs that sound like it: the rock-anthem paeans to holding fierce & tight & viciously exulting to life (let's grab life by the throat/and then live it to pieces), with an endearingly misguided veneer of assertions that any of this shit is meaningfully punk rock. It's misogynist around the edges, because fundamentally there is absolutely no fucking way I would last longer than five minutes in a pub with this guy before I was yelling at him that the fucking reason he's stuck on I have to say that, honestly,/I still haven't found/the person who can take the strain/.../so I'll do this on my own is that he's straight and he doesn't think of women as people, and he doesn't want a partner he wants a Manic Pixie fucking Dream Girl, and perhaps if he could think of higher praise than Tre's the safest girl I know and if he could conceive of women having complex interiorities with motivations beyond being the addressee of but darling, if you're there, gentle voice and soothing hands,/to quiet my despair, to shore up all my plans he'd have more satisfying relationships--

-- all that aside, right, I Still Believe, and here's a run-down of its variants.

• Photosynthesis, off Love Ire & Song. Oh maturity's a wrapped-up package deal or so it seems/and ditching teenage fantasy means ditching all your dreams/all your friends and peers and family solemnly tell you you will/have to grow up, be an adult, yeah be bored and unfulfilled/.../and I won't sit down/and I won't shut up/and most of all I will not grow up!
  
• Love Ire & Song, off Love Ire & Song. Oh, but once we were young and we were crass enough to care/But I guess, you live and learn, we won't make that mistake again/But surely just for one day we could fight and we could win/And if only for a little while, we could insist on the impossible... [nb this one is kind of eye-rolly on politics but it's also great to shout along to: the point's the chorus and the hope surging up past and through and inextricably entangled with the tired and cynical defeatism]
  
• The Ballad of Me & My Friends, off Sleep is for the Week. ... if you're all about the destination, then take a fucking flight/we're going nowhere slowly, but we're seeing all the sights/and we're definitely going to hell/but we'll have all the best stories to tell--/we'll have all the best stories to tell.
  
• off Poetry of the Deed, Live Fast Die Old; Try This At Home ('coz we write love songs in C/and we do politics in G/we sing songs about our friends in E minor/so tear down the stars, now, and take up your guitars/and come on folks & try this at home); Poetry of the Deed (before we get bored, let's be inspired/let's ignore the applause and set the theatre on fire/fight every war like the drunks in the choir/put our art where our mouths are, poetry of the deed/enough with words and technical theses/let's grab life by the throat and then live it to pieces/we can choose, we can change and if we don't/we're just afraid of living life like we're loved/and in love and alive to all the things we could be/if we just believed that life/life is too short to live without poetry...); and I have a personal soft spot (for obvious reasons) for Faithful Son.
  
• off England Keep My Bones, I love the first half of I Am Disappeared (but be aware it's kind of intrinsically about depression), to some extent One Foot Before The Other, and honestly several others I'm fond of because I'm exasperatedly into this guy's music but I don't really want to rec them; I Still Believe, of course; and If Ever I Stray (with warnings for breaking a musical instrument on the video, and immense economic privilege in the chorus, which is nonetheless rousing: so we all have secrets that we hold inside/yeah the worst little things that we never confide/and the worst one of all that you just can't hide/you're never quite as strong as you sound -- this is the one from which I get my tag pair "I couldn't do this on my own"//"really - I couldn't")
  
• actually pretty much the entirety of Positive Songs for Negative People, in that it's the theme of the album, but I'm going to pull out Get Better (it's just a simple Braille missive from the person you miss/a reminder you could always be a little bit better than this/so try to get better and don't ever accept less/take a plain black marker and write this on your chest/draw a line underneath all of this unhappiness/c'mon now let's fix this mess/we can get better/BECAUSE WE'RE NOT DEAD YET); The Next Storm (I don't want to spend the whole of my life indoors/laying low and waiting on the next storm/I don't want to spend the whole of my life inside/I want to step outside and face the sunshine/I'm not going to spend the whole of my life indoors/I'm going to step out and face the next storm); Glorious You (there were a thousand auditions you didn't quite get through/so many masks to wear, so much weight to bear/but you were only ever you, you were glorious you/you were glorious//so come on now, if we all pulled together/we could lift up the weight of the world from your shoulders/just for a moment or two...); Demons (life as a holiday, a moment stolen from the black/before the demons drag you back/you won't get everything you wanted/but you will never be defeated.)

But seriously there are so many other people you could spend time and money on instead. The Indelicates, obviously, though they don't particularly do much of a line in grimly-clinging-on-to-positivity-rock-anthems (and the one they have written I can't share with you, sorry, but they're perfect anyway and you should listen to them); Freshlyground (start with Doo Be Doo and Air Hostess); Matt Fishel, particularly Testament (NSFW music video; it's ok to keep your head held high/and it's ok to doubt yourself sometimes/and it's ok to fall in love), and if you're into Orphan Black please watch this then tell me that Felix isn't into the guy; Muncie Girls (Feel It Soon); everything by ONSIND. Yeah.

Comments

[vass]

grimly-clinging-on-to-positivity-rock-anthems

Have you listened to much/any of the Mountain Goats? I ask because John Darnielle is not a dickhead, really gets it about mental illness and addiction and abuse, engages with his Christian upbringing in a way I think you'd like, has extremely broad tastes the music he listens to and recommends, and is also a giant nerd, and here is 'This Year'. (content note: child abuse mention)

"There will be feasting and dancing in Jerusalem next year / I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me."

[kaberett]

thank you for the specific rec! listening to new music without being sat down with a friendperson is HARD (because audiovisual processing lol what even is that A HOAX I propose), but will see if I can manage this one once I've finalised the benefits bullshit :-)

[vass]

Would sitting down with a friendperson in IRC help, or is it an in person thing? I am planning/hoping to start logging into IRC regularly soon.

Good luck with the benefits bullshit. How is it going?

And yes, audiovisual processing definitely some sort of trick.

[kaberett]

In general that kind of encouragement is helpful, yes. I have now listened and have had the initial reaction to new music I always have (vis "I don't like it (because it's unfamiliar)"), but it wasn't "I hate it", so I'll have another go. (Getting used to new voices, UGH.) In any case, looking forward to seeing you around more :-)

Benefits bullshit is (a) AS DONE AS IT'S GOING TO BE bar going out to print out notes and take the whole to a post office and (b) the JSA component of ESA has come through i.e. I ACTUALLY HAVE SOME MONEY. And when I get back from posting it I GET TO READ CHAPTERS TWO AND THREE.

[vass]

I have now listened and have had the initial reaction to new music I always have (vis "I don't like it (because it's unfamiliar)"), but it wasn't "I hate it", so I'll have another go.

Cool. I'm not sure if his voice and general sound would be your thing or not, but I'm reasonably sure he writes lyrics that would be you-compatible.

I am now lurking around #dreamwidth and #dreamwidth-dev under my wallet name, and will probably camp out there until bedtime.

MIGHTY CONGRATS for bullshit being as done as it's going to be.

And when I get back from posting it I GET TO READ CHAPTERS TWO AND THREE.

:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

[jedusaur]

ALSO DILAUDID (youtube link)

All the chickens come on home to roost
Plump bodies blotting out the sky
You know it breaks my heart in half, in half
When I see them try to fly

'Cause you just can't do
Things your body wasn't meant to
Hike up your fishnets
I know you

[vass]

Another one I love, yes, although less with the "grimly clinging to positivity" there. :D

Another Mountain Goats song kaberett might like (content note: autobiographical account of child abuse) is 'Hast Thou Considered The Tetrapod?'.

"And alone in my room / I am the last of a lost civilisation / I vanish into the dark / And rise above my station / [...] / One of these days / I'm going to wriggle up on dry land."