His first album in six years, 'What Tomorrow Knows', Steve Pledger returns with the protest album the world need as it marches for a better tomorrow
It’s been six years since Steve’s last studio album, during which time he’s relocated to Co. Durham, a setting that is perhaps a better backdrop to his songs of struggle and protest than the more stereotypically laid back climes of Somerset.
Co-produced by and featuring Lukas Drinkwater with Adrian Catlow on fiddle and Nigel Neill on organ, he tackles a range of themes and social issues, opening in magnificent form with ‘The Baptist’s Father’, which, delivered with a measured strum, drum beat and background organ, is (referencing Zechariah, the father of John The Baptist, who was struck dumb for doubting God) a slow burn anthem to youth about raising their voice in the face of injustice before you’re left with the will but no longer the words:
The world has got inside of me And it has ripped them all away I stand here now dumbfounded Though the fire still burns inside Like the Baptist’s Father I am by disbelief denied
Taking a bluesier form with its determined walking rhythm and instrumental break, as the title suggests ‘Fields That Still Divide’ is a call to put away divisions and work together to be, as the refrain has it, so much stronger still and that:
Any threat to undermine by chance or by our own design stands little hope if we don’t stand alone
Brexit provides the backdrop to the musically broody, hushed sung, allegorical ‘Salt From The Sea’:
Now I’m standing beside the ocean in fear of what will be For what we have we have set in motion. To take the salt from the sea
If the opening song alluded to The New Testament, here, as the track builds in musical muscle, he references Hinduism in mentioning Agastya, a sage from Vedic mythology who was supposed to have drunk up all the waters of the ocean.
Staying with the blues with tapped acoustic guitar percussion and some electric noodling licks from Drinkwater, ‘Lay Them Down’ has an itchy rhythmic spirituals groove to its repeated verse and chorus reap what you sow theme:
Bring out your dead and your dying Lay them down at the feet of the Lord Hush now with your wailing and crying The lack of faith that you can’t afford When you live by the sword
Anchored by sparse strummed guitar and punctuated by the anthemic swell of Drinkwater’s piano and Catlow’s fiddle arrive for ‘Revelation’, a song which starts out with a portrait of a supportive, loving relationship:
For all these years now you have been at my side Through thick and thin. Feels like I owe you my very soul Since you took me and made me whole
But then the picture changes mid-way to become one of abuse over the years:
And I believe you when you explain That it hurts you more to cause me pain So please forgive me Don’t let me go! This life with you It’s all I know
Before comes the self-awakening that:
I’m worth much more Than you or I Believed before
Culminating in a belated flight and a casting off of the chains:
Therefore, I nail this To your door You won’t see me Anymore! For all you gave I now bestow The only thing I truly owe…And I see you now As you have been For all these years The devil’s kin
Things get personal with the lightly picked, 60s folksy troubadour jauntiness of ‘Sister, Dear’, a big brother’s apology to his and sisters everywhere for the unthinking cruelty and misogyny sibling relationships can sometimes entail:
I’d pull your hair when we were kids I don’t know why it’s just what big brothers did I’d take the praise and I’d pass the blame And I gave no thought and felt no shame
It’s back to politics with ‘Same Smile, Same Words’, a reflection on the gap between rhetoric and reality and how the tide will always eventually turn and wash them away, a blues-inflected folk feel but with an underpinning Velvet Underground-like bassline. John Heslop on rainy night sax, that’s followed with the musically introspective and moody ‘Waiting To Hurt’, a somewhat pessimistic song about how life always has something up its sleeve to keep us from contentment:
We can be sure of this and no more That hard times will come for us all
But that:
What can make it worthwhile Are those reasons to smile In between them Though they may be small
Heslop switching to clarinet, things take a decided musical switcheroo with ‘The Stagehand’s Tale’ with its 30s styling, taking a look at backstage theatrical life, an amusing sketch of a seedy talentless troupe that still has the crowds lining up. It’s not hard to see the political metaphor lurking behind the lines:
You get what you pay for What did you expect From a cast made up of clowns That any circus would reject
And that complaining and asking for a refund is pointless, because:
You chose to come In spite of the reviews
And, with a General Election theoretically not on the cards until not later than 2025, the pertinence is unmistakable in the lines:
It’s got a few more years to run So long as there are queues Outside the ticket office Well, that part’s down to you
Evocative of Martyn Joseph, there’s more politics in the rhythmic bluesy prowl and fingerpicked shifting tempo of ‘Blabscam’ which, Catlow’s fiddle again prominent, addresses the equivocating mainstream media, excuses, repercussions, false prophets, mistrust, empty promises as he declares:
I want the retribution that cruel betrayal earns I want truth not balance Truth demands a stand Veracity and treachery should no go hand in hand And I want an end to reason The kind that turns away from calling out injustice Out of fear of what injustice might say
And just in case you miss the point, he signs off with:
I just want someone To rise and put these bastards to shame!
Appropriately then, it ends with, first the quietly fingerpicked ‘Rise’, a call to action on which, joined by the Itunu choir, he asks:
Can you afford your apathy your hand me down compliancy Can you afford not to awake now Can you afford not to rise? When the scales fall from our eyes
And finally comes the acoustic anthemic, fiddle-graced seven-minute plus ‘Hope In Our Hands’ with its simple inspirational message that:
If just a little hope still burns In our hearts then we must understand That that hope, it’s not just in our hearts, do we understand Hope is in our hands?
And that:
We can achieve A little peace, a little harmony So let’s pretend that we know the end And that it’s all worth fighting for And let’s suppose what tomorrow knows and shake these chains once more!
Because, as it reaches its soaring fiddle-driven climax and fade, a better tomorrow is:
Every bridge that’s built instead of burned It’s every kindness shown each lesson learned It’s every vote cast for better days It’s in the feet that march that voice you raise
He’s previously said that it’s people not songs that change the world. But as ‘What Tomorrow Knows’ effortlessly proves, it helps to have something inspirational to raise your voices with as you march.
‘What Tomorrow Knows’ is available now via stevepledger.co.uk