Left-wing. Right-wing. What does it even mean now-a-days?
Too often we get bogged down in what are at the extremes of the political landscape. I don’t think the two have to be mutually exclusive. People that declare themselves as ‘lefties’ can believe in supposed ‘right-wing’ policies and vice-versa. Things are not black and white and this is where Frank Turner comes in.
Frank Turner is a political, singer-songwriter than went to Eton College in Windsor, studying French with Prince William. He was also raised on hardcore punk-rock. All of this lends towards assuming he’s in the Billy Bragg school of ‘left-wing punk rockers’, but he created controversy several years ago for his comments on the conservative British BNP party and feelings about left-wing politics. Of course, a journalist that collates quotes from various interviews and puts them into an article, is not the best way to create news and Turner himself replied to the article on his website, titled ‘Schmolitics’.
All of this aside, Frank Turner writes some excellent songs, covering all sorts of topics from drinking to atheism to ‘bad decisions at Sydney airport’ and the latest is this track, ‘Get Better’. It comes off his upcoming album due out later this year which he promises will be ‘fuzzy, raw and fresh’.
And I won’t sit down
And I won’t shut up
And most of all I will not grow up
Photosynthesis – 2008
He is currently in Australia with his band, The Sleeping Souls and having played at Bluesfest over the weekend he will continue to do sideshows all over. I will burst my Frank Turner cherry on Saturday night and I’m really looking forward to hearing what he has to say about our country and the state of politics….or maybe he won’t even mention it, but damn, it’ll be fun either way.
Check out the lyric video for his new track which features his brand new book ‘The Road Beneath My Feet’ at the end, a collection of stories and photos from his tours.