The problem with falling in love in late bars
Is that there’s always more nights, there’s always more bars.
The problem with showing your lover your scars
Is that everybody’s lover is covered in scars.

So many great songs on Frank Turner’s new album Tape Deck Heart, but “Plain Sailing Weather” is the one on repeat today. (And probably tomorrow too.)

So give me one fine day of plain sailing weather
And I can fuck up anything, anything.
It was a wonderful life when we were together,
And now I’ve fucked up every little goddamn thing.

Every time opportunity knocks on my door,
I just send it on straight down to hell.
‘Cause every time I was given a chance
to stand on my own two feet I fell.

Well some people they imagine
the disappointment must tear me apart,
Break my heart,
And presume I’m disgusted
by all the injustice I’ve seen.
But that’s not me and I tell you
That I bear no resentment to millionaire pop singers
barely literate poets and guitar stock gunslingers,
And I smile so politely
At the well meaning ignorance
Of the people who tell me I’m gonna make it someday.

David Ford’s albums always come out just when I need them to, when my life needs a push or a pick me up or a reminder or a scolding. His “Go To Hell”, “Decimate” and “I’m Alright Now” off the album Songs For the Road are essential tracks. His new album Charge features the stirring “Every Time”, which is as much David Ford-y as David Ford can get, ending with the following summation:

Well the Sun’s going down on what’s left of today
And the tide drags what’s left of this moment away.
And so I kick through the dirt and the red autumn leaves,
What I had and what I lost and what I still believe,
And I have no regrets for the time that I spent
barely paying my dues and barely paying the rent,
For a simple pursuit of more honest a life.
Yeah I don’t cheat on my taxes, I don’t cheat on my wife.

Now the fire’s burning out and the walls closing in,
And I’m dragged by the gravity into the sin
Of obedient service of some twisted machine,
Blowing smoke in our faces of each little scene.
Set to form a distraction just to buy up some time,
Misdirected by swagger and beaten by rhyme.
Telling tales of a life you might one day attain
If you just keep your focus relentlessly trained
On the things you can get and not who you can be.
No the innocent dream of the sky and the sea,
And the word and the truth and the spirit of man,
And a history that promises one day we can,
With a love for your brother and your sister and yourself.
Get there one day together in good cheer and good health.
But it comes at a cost, yeah there’s a price that you pay
For a sweet bowl tomorrow you gotta give up today.

It’s a sacrifice way beyond mortals like me,
For an age that never was and never could ever be.
So I don’t dwell on the past, I don’t rue my mistakes,
And I’m proud that I never had whatever it takes.
Now I’m stood on the deck of this leaky old boat
With just a shirt on my back and a song in my throat.
And I’m the luckiest boy on the face of the earth,
‘Cause I know about love and I know what it’s worth.

So I’m not giving up, and I’m not giving in,
Though I know it’s a fight that I’m not gonna win.
And I still scream in the face of more powerful men:
I choose this, motherfucker, and I choose it again!

When I’m wake up, well I hope I’m gonna be
I’m gonna be the man whose waking up to you.
And when I’m dreamin’, well I know I’m gonna dream
I’m gonna dream about the time I had with you.

Sleeping at Last’s cover of The Proclaimers “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” is, quite possibly, the best cover I could imagine for that song. In fact, it’s too good.

It’s been on repeat in my iTunes and in my head for days. I hope it’s on repeat in yours.

(It doesn’t hurt that it’s causing this weird musical time warp in my head/life, to the summer of 2001, to this exact same month so many years ago, and to this exact same series of events currently unfolding and cascading around in my head/life, albeit better and different, or better and worse, or whatever. It’s something only music can do, time travel. It can take you places.)