Michael Weston King – The Struggle
Cherry Red – 1 April 2022
Initially intended as a new My Darling Clementine album, it became clear that Michael Weston Kings’ songs on The Struggle would be better served as a folksier Americana solo singer-songwriter album rather than their old school country duets. This has resulted in Michael’s first standalone recording in ten years. However, his wife and singing partner Lou Dalgleish does lend her vocals on one of the tracks, the title underlying a running theme but actually named for a hill walk in the Lake District.
Recorded in mid-Wales between winter 2020 and spring 2021, featuring vocals by Jeb Loy Nichols, it’s framed by two versions of Weight Of The World, sung in the persona of a veteran NY cop (part of “the thin red line of blue”) who voted for Trump (“I put a cross beside the name/ I thought that it would be a change for good/The boys down at the station all convinced me/though I never really understood”). Disillusionment follows in a reference to how Trump had a Washington street cleared of peaceful protesters so he could wave a bible in front of St. John’s church; what resulted (“Now I’m looking to the man who got my vote/Why do decency and love stick in his throat?/Who sends soldiers to the streets instead of messengers of hope”), and to what America has become in the light of the George Floyd tragedy (“I saw them on the news the other night/And I clearly understand it’s not right/To hold a man down, while he begs for his life”). It’s all succinctly summed up in the refrain “It’s not the weight of the world on our shoulders, it’s the weight of a man”, leaving him “just another number/No longer acting dumber/Looking for salvation with a thousand yard stare”. Repeated at the end in an extended version with the Ghostwriter remix, the Wurlitzer more prominent and featuring newsreel reportage; with its contemporary resonance, it’s one of the best things he’s written.
That’s not to say the rest of the material is of any lesser quality with a mix of personal material and storytelling. Second up, built on a lilting descending chords melody, is a simple acoustic guitar and mandolin addiction-themed Sugar (“They say that you’re bad for me/And yes I know that’s true/You’re not the only thing I want/But you’re the one that gets me through”) a co-write with Peter Case that, clothed in Townes-like border country tones, comes with a wry pun (“Struck by the cane/Every time I feel the pain/Just one hit, and I can’t stop”) and a fine electric solo.
Joined by Colin Elliot on second piano, the quietly anthemic The Hardest Thing Of All treats on depression (“When the hardest thing of all/Is just getting out of bed/And the sun that’s streaming in/Only lights a darkness in your head/And you’ve got nowhere to go/So you roll over and you stay/Beneath a blanket of sorrow”) and of having to face up to things you’d rather not (“When the hardest thing of all/Is admitting something’s wrong/And you’re trying to tell someone/That you’ve known for so long/They say they’re coming round today/Or maybe they’ll just call/Will you answer the door?”).
Sustaining the mood, inspired by a former neighbour who was more upbeat and industrious than him and with string and hints of Mickey Newbury to the music, Another Dying Day continues the theme of being unable to find purpose or summon up the effort to do anything with your life (“My neighbour greets me without warning/His sun comes up every morning/He can’t see the clouds over my wall/The weeds are growing at my door/No roses bloom and here’s what’s more/There’s no one left to grow them for”), trying hard not to become “one of those men/Who’s awake at six and in their cups by ten/Trying to kill the day/So I leave the bottle on the table/I leave those pills inside the jar/And try to face the day alone”).
Loss and finding a way to live with it figure large on several numbers. Slow dancing to a lovely old time waltz, the bittersweet The Old Soft Shoe is sung in the voice of a widower remembering ballroom days with his late wife (“I still do the old soft shoe/I trip around the kitchen, there’s a table for two/But I live here alone, and nobody knows/That I dance each evening all on my own/I close my eyes and I’m at your side”), Barnaby Dickinson’s trombone adding to the warmth of his reverie.
A more specific loss is behind Valerie’s Coming Home, a valediction written following the death of Lou’s mother (and a poignant companion piece to MDC’s Ashes, Flowers and Dust, which she wrote about the passing of her dad and his mum) and about her moving into a care home, her final few days and subsequent funeral (“They packed away her cards and letters/Folded up her favourite sweaters/Handed you her wedding band that had not/been off in 50 years/Took down all the photographs/Snapshot moments from the past/Boxed up all her memories and faded souvenirs/Nobody wants to see her leaving/ Nobody wants to find her not at home”). The Frank who is told to close the window and not let the heat out in the lyrics is actually Michael, Valerie inexplicably always calling him by that name. When he sings how, “Two have gone now from that frame/For the other three life’s not the same/But every generation will still hold a part of you/There’s a pile of mail stacked behind the front door/And a light that blinks, there are messages on the phone/From older sisters you didn’t outlast/Well-wishers from the past/Who called to say they’d come around/Just as soon as you got home”, I have to confess I had to wipe tears from my eyes.
The melody reminiscent of Hello In There, a different Frank puts an appearance on the subsequent Me & Frank, featuring Elliot on cello, inspired by the memory of an old school friend (actually called Anthony) from his teenage days in Southport, the first verse recalling how they’d bag up grass seed they collected from the beach to sell door to door for people’s lawns before the narrative takes off into Nebraska territory a la Highway Patrolman into a story that moves from doing time for horse stealing to introduce a gun, a robbery, a falling out (“He took his mother’s car, the Mercury/He took his share, and took mine too/I’m still waiting here and he’s gone free”) and how Frank “lost it all in a losers game”, as the narrator ends with “I’ve not seen him in 30 years/I miss his smile but not the tears”.
The two remaining songs both link to his friend, the late Jackie Leven. Again featuring Jeb Loy Nichols alongside Michael’s daughter Mabel Dalgleish-King on descant recorder and vocals, originally appearing on the tribute album The Wanderer and wonderfully channelling that man’s music and spirit, The Final Reel is a celebration of “You roaring, roving vagabond/You tall story telling vagabond” as he sings “Now the trumpets have all faded out/And the final reel has been shown/You taught me the ways of the drinking man/Now I must drink alone/But I’ll play the halls we knew so well/And I’ll sing the songs we cried/Until I join you in the devil’s choir/Your voice will never die”.
Also, originally intended for the same album but not completed in time, featuring Dave Luke on mandolin, Mike Cosgrave on soft, soothing strings and Steve Nieve on piano, Theory Of Truthmakers is a posthumous co-write with Michael putting music to Leven’s words (the handwritten lyrics to be found on the liner notes), the spare arrangement nodding to Scott Walker’s Scott 2 with the soaring hymnal-shaded chorus (“But you and I/We press our palms/And reach for the sky/There’s a face in the cloud/I don’t recognise/That stares down on you and I”) melody where he’s joined by Lou surely borrowing in part from the Bing Crosby/Grace Kelly classic True Love, the track ending on an acoustic guitar solo.
There will, at some point, be a new My Darling Clementine album, but this is a hugely welcome return to the solo spotlight, and I’d venture to suggest his finest album yet.
Website: http://www.michaelwestonking.com/
Photo Credit: Michael Weston King