Newton Faulkner - 'All I Got'
Do you keep a mental list of all the people you would most like to meet in the world? I think we all do, really, don't we? Sometimes you just want to meet people because you think you'd get on really well with them as mates, sometimes you want to offer them a friendly word of advice, and sometimes you want to meet them because you just want to tell them how much the thing they do (music, writing, sport, politics) has affected your life and how grateful you are.
I've ]ust added someone to my list. It's not Newton Faulkner himself, although he seems like a very nice fella and I'm sure that meeting him would be an extremely pleasant way to pass a rainy afternoon. No, the person I would really like to meet is Newton's producer. I would just like the opportunity to meet the person who transformed this hippy minstrel into such a potent pop force, and shake them warmly by the throat.
Seriously, what is going on with the music in this song? The parts which have been provided by Newton - which is just the twiddly acoustic guitar, and the voice, I assume - are an open invitation into a cosy living room, with a fire in the hearth and your slippers ready-warmed by your favourite soft armchair. It's warm, it's sweet, it's relaxing, it's pretty...
...suddenly, BOOM! A drummer in a nearby room starts playing along, FAR too loud. It makes everyone jump. The roaring fire has suddenly become a three-bar electric job, but the chair is still comfy and your slippers are still warm, so you'll put up with it for now.
Only there's now a bass player in the kitchen. He's sneaking up behind you with his tasty fretless swoops and glides, but the funky pops and slaps are turning into quacks and parps as his creamy playing curdles in front of the fire. Either that or he's got really bad wind. Your slippers are now your school shoes, and they're new, and they're cold.
Then, in the middle of a massively beefcake chorus, you realise there's a percussionist thwacking a cowbell in the toilet, and someone filling in the gaps between all the sounds with synthesiser grout in the bathroom. Your chair is now a plastic stool, with one cracked leg, and you're not in the living room any more, you're in the waiting room at the dentists, and there's a draught.
"OMG!", the Faulkner fans all shout, "even if you don't like the production, surely you can see it's a good song?"
Which is a fair point in some ways. Except you wouldn't consider the Mona Lisa to be a great painting still if someone drew a massive beard on it and wrote a speech bubble which reads "I R STOOPID BUMFACE", right?
And Newton Faulkner, for all that he's a talented fella, is no Leonardo Da Vinci. A point I will be only too pleased to explain to his producer, once he or she has caught their breath.
Download: Out now
CD Released: October 22nd
(Fraser McAlpine)
Comments
"Except you wouldn't consider the Mona Lisa to be a great painting still if someone drew a massive beard on it and wrote a speech bubble which reads "I R STOOPID BUMFACE", right?"
It wisnae me. A big(ger) boy did it and ran away.
But seriously folks, surely Newton Faulkner is a troll.
There were seven and a hundred Trolls,
They were both ugly and grim,
A visit they would the farmer make,
Both eat and drink with him.
But no mention of anything even remotely resembling musical talent.
I can only assume with no more Lord of the Rings films being made, all the folks of the far northern land of Trollebotten are having to make their living some other way.
Me, I blame global warming.