John Grant like King Creosote or Wild Beasts is one of those artists where their album just *lurks* on your iPod and never leaves, or pops up again and is very welcome. Those of you who have heard the recent strangely sedate version by Sinead O’Connor need to hear the original if you haven’t – a good start might be this stripped back version for the Strongroom sessions which reveals he’s actually a good pianist too and the song holds up without the excellent Midlake – although I always miss that excellent fuck up in the song where they go into the loud bit by accident and someone laughs, it fits the comic self-puncturing feeling of the song very well.
It really is one of a few extremely honest ‘fuck you’ songs in my listening repertoire, and strange how what essentially is a 70’s styled Nillson*-esque ballad of self-analysis and self-deprecation (but defiantly not self-immolation) could be the most punk and angry thing in my collection. This is far from Radio 2 even if they might play him, from the witty couplets in a Cohen-style vein to the themes about addiction, homophobia and not wanting to be loved. And unlike the Sinead version you might get why it’s called Queen of Denmark and who he is mostly singing it to in this version.
And I dedicate this to a few people who recently proved that they distinctly do not have a clue and should hear: ‘You have no right to want anything from me at all. Why don’t you take it out on somebody else? Why don’t you tell somebody else that they’re selfish? Weepy coward and pathetic …’ – sadly/happily they don’t read this blog I think. A little dramatic, yes, but sometimes you do need to crank it up, and thrash it out, own your own shit but then fling it in their faces, because it’s the way to deal with pompous arses like that.
Can’t wait for album #2.
* initially wrote Nillsen there, which has a completely different meaning, but maybe darkly appropriate too. *ahem*
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