Steve Ashley – One More Thing
Market Square – 28 September 2018
Steve Ashley will no doubt once again find his status as a truly quintessential British singer-songwriter heartily endorsed with this latest collection of original songs, which he positively assures us will be his last record. The listener could however be forgiven for thinking that the assurance Steve gives on that point would appear to be flying rather in the face of his own recommendation to “dare to question all you see and all you hear, including me” – an admonition which is seen to function almost as a leitmotif for the whole album. A stance which is probably easiest summed up on the almost chirpy penultimate track, None Of It’s Fooling Me.
Steve’s trademark modus operandi, consistent throughout his 50-year musical journey and honed by now to a fine art, is that of setting sharp commentary on contemporary political issues within a traditional construct. Happily, he sees no reason to depart from that practice here, although the album’s very title can also easily be seen as distinctly ironic – not least since in this world there will always be at least “one more thing” to bemoan or comment upon. It also recalls the crime-thriller device whereby the detective will save his most important question for an almost casual “oh, and one more thing…” just as he is leaving the room. For Steve is, naturally, undoubtedly going to be using his final album as a means of providing a vital, and of course distinctly radical, commentary on the important issues of our day.
Steve’s unafraid to name and shame, and as always he does so with a potent combination of lyrical poetry, delicious wit and darkly puckish humour. Hence, among the ripe and ready targets placed under the microscope for pertinent and gleeful dissection here, we find Theresa May (on When May Turned To June). And of course, Donald Trump (on God Bless America). For predictably, the world is still as full of war-hungry politicians as ever – all the while The Dragonfly (deceptively deftly characterised here) lives and dies and is reborn in its eternal cycle (for “he’ll be here when we’re gone”). Another essential track, They Are So Few, directly confronts the warmongering leaders and the way they seek to manage our lives. Keep It Free And Easy explores the duality and hypocrisy of entrenched (and fostered) attitudes which we’re strongly encouraged to question with the hindsight of harsh experience. Steve’s unbounded admiration for those who take a stand in the face of everything (disc opener Stand Together), the sanguine yet reluctant acceptance of one’s physical condition after a certain age, for all the while the convictions remain the “door knock days” are done for the man at 81 after a life of activism.
There’s invariably an acute and insightful historical perspective to Steve’s writing, as on The Windsor Song, a rollicking indictment of what Steve describes as “the way the Royals have attempted to court popularity” during his lifetime. He makes a different, even more sinister correlation in the case of The White Helmets (focusing on the eponymous “first responders” who would form the subject of an intended feature film by George Clooney), speculating on the motives behind whose funding which hint that the issues are not as black and white as they might appear.
The album has an intimate, sharing quality, having been recorded simply at Steve’s own home in Cheltenham. The songs are accompanied by Steve on guitar with some tasty splashes of harmonica here and there. Yet, for all that the album contains plenty of Steve’s signature nifty, stylish guitar work, One More Thing has one other feature in common with its predecessor Another Day: that one of its standout songs is sung a cappella. Get Real is a powerful call-to-arms born out of a reaction to blind faith and the resultant disillusionment and disappointment that it invariably brings – but even the exhortation to action has a sting in the tail and a final irony, masterfully conveyed in the song’s final verse, which even reduces Steve himself to laughter in the recording.
Despite Steve’s insistence that One More Thing will be his final album release, the overall feel is far from valedictory (while noting that quality pervaded Another Shore, the final track on his previous album, 2017’s Another Day). Through his unshakable desire to bring about a change for the better by jolting us into an enhanced appreciation of what we still have, Steve is doubly determined that we fight on in the face of everything; his feistiness is both ingrained and admirably intractable. So even if Steve sticks to his guns and never makes another album, you can bet that he’ll still find plenty more to say about this world – the watchwords of grit, determination and integrity will stay with Steve to the end.