Try This at Home : Adventures in Songwriting (9781472257840) by Turner Frank

Author:Turner, Frank [Frank Turner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hachette Book Group USA
Published: 2019-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

With my new protesting friends in Norfolk, Virginia, USA

BALTHAZAR, IMPRESARIO

My name is Balthazar, Impresario,

And you’ll find me at the bottom of the page.

I have artist’s hands, though I’m a working man,

But my craft has been forgotten by the age,

So tonight will be my last night on the stage.

This is my family’s trade, my father built this place

At the turning of the twentieth century.

I have been working here for some fifty years,

But the young these days are glued to TV screens,

And the old girl is dying on her feet.

My friends from theatre school all thought I was a fool

For leaving Shakespeare for the music hall,

And now my son’s left home and set out on his own,

And the critics think we’re quaint but set to fall.

But they’ve only seen the show from the stalls.

Once more to the boards,

One more curtain call.

Give the crowd everything they’re asking for and more.

Always make them laugh,

Try to make them cry,

Always take the stage like it’s the last night of your life.

And all the things I’ve seen behind these tattered scenes,

And all the upturned faces with the lamplight in their eyes,

And each imperfect turn flickers as it burns,

Only lasts a moment, but for me they’ll never die.

We are respected,

But we’re not remembered.

We are the ghosts of Vaudeville,

Unnumbered.

We are the fathers of the halls,

But we will never be famous.

We aren’t just artists, we are something more:

We’re entertainers.

I smooth my thinning hair in a gilded mirror

To try to hide the tell-signs of my age.

My name is Balthazar, Impresario,

And tonight will be my last night on the stage.

* * *

There are various stock interview questions which, if you’re someone who does a lot of interviews, you’re certain to encounter from time to time. One such is this: ‘Do you have any regrets?’ And the stereotypical punk rock answer expected is to say something along the lines of ‘Hell no! No apologies, no looking back!’ That’s always struck me as especially asinine. Any thinking, engaged adult, who has attempted to do anything of note with their life, is going to have put their foot wrong from time to time. I know I have; there’s a long litany I could recite of moments where I could have made a better call. Before this paragraph becomes overly remorseful or psychoanalytical, I should hasten to specify what I’m talking about: ‘Balthazar, Impresario’ should not have been a B-side.

For every record I’ve ever made I’ve had more songs than I’ve needed for the normal running length of an album. And call me a traditionalist if you will, but I do still believe in the album as an artistic format – a collection of songs that runs to around forty to fifty minutes of music, and which has an internal coherence, a thread running through it. For example, while I emphatically don’t usually write concept albums, in the case of England Keep My Bones, I was able to pick a suite of songs from the material available that had a contiguous feel. The end result was an album that is, in essence, about national identity (and mortality).

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