There are no fools like The New Fools

 By Henry Lipput

“What did you do during the lock down, Daddy?”

If you were The New Fools, a Cambridge, England-based band consisting of Tony Jenkins on lead vocals and acoustic guitar, The Druid on electric guitar, Dave Seabright on bass guitar, Pete Carter on drums, and Shay Jenkins on keyboards, you recorded eight brand-new songs on each member's mobile phones and then everything was mixed together by Christian Gustafsson. The first single, “Nothing Toulouse,” was released in May and another seven were released during the summer. They’ve now been assembled on the splendid album Papillion - The Complete Lock Down Sessions (Everlasting Records/Bandcamp).

You might think, like I did, that the title of the lock down album was a reference to the Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman movie about prisoners trying to escape an island prison and these songs were escaping from the lock down. But it turns out, according to Tony Jenkins, the album title (with an extra ‘i’) is in fact a nod to that great band The Go-Betweens who had a loose  rule that album titles would have two LLs (Tallulah and 16 Lovers Lane, for example).  The New Fools have adopted this rule and so far have released their three albums with two LLs in the title: last year’s Brilliant, Mershmellow from earlier this year, and now Papillion. 

One of my favorite songs from the sessions is “D.N.S.” a wonderful salute to the skiffle era. For you kids too young to know about skiffle, it was England’s pre-rock-and-roll craze popularized by singers like Lonnie Donegan and embraced by groups such as The Quarrymen which later became The Beatles. The song rocks in a quiet sort of way and it’s a joyous look back at that time: “Won’t someone tell me where that sound is coming from/Just four people dressed in black and they’re kicking up a storm” and “They can’t believe they make that sound with just four people playing.”

Although bands like The New Fools haven’t been able to perform live for their fans since the spring, “Sunday Night” is about a musician with a much-loved back catalogue having to perform the old tunes again and again to an audience who are also people of a certain age. It’s not an angry or mean song, but presented with a sense of resignation: “And I’ve written so many songs/But no one wants to hear the new ones/Or face their sorrows.”  There’s a lovely flugel horn played by James Stygall that introduces the song.

Age is also a topic in “Old Bones” and also a feeling of both sadness and resignation: “I don’t think I can take another winter/These old bones sure feel the cold” and the chorus echoes the feeling of time having gone by “So much has changed/Are you still the same?/Or have you gone the way I’ve gone?” There’s a wonderful guitar solo from The Druid, some fine organ work by Shay Jenkins, and, as always, a warm vocal turn from Tony Jenkins. 

“Witch,” which gallops at full speed, opens with Kristin Hersh reading an except from her 'Rat Girl' memoir: “This is the story of a girl/A girl who flew from this world/On the fender of a witch/A too bad hard luck don’t stop drive away.” It might just be me but I’m hearing a bit of Donovan’s “Season Of The Witch” on this tune.

The last song to be released and the closing track on the album, “We’ll Meet Again,” is the only one that touches on the difficulties people are facing during these difficult times. But it’s also an uplifting message with the hope that we can meet again when things get back to some sort of normal.  “We’ll meet again/Along with our old friends/And the one’s we won’t see again/We’ll drink to them,” sings Tony Jenkins. “We’ve never known times so strange/So many things we had to change/It hurts so bad/We’ve been through hell/And back again.” But, like those four lads from Liverpool once sang, we’ll be okay because “All you need is Love” and the song ends with a sing-along of that grand sentiment.

Next time: Tugboat Captain’s album is not a Rut you’ll want to get out of any time soon