The New Fools works in pairs

 By Henry Lipput 

The outstanding new album Vanille (Everlasting Records) from The New Fools is their third (although I’d argue that it’s their fourth because the terrific lockdown sessions collection released as Papillion in 2020 is, to my mind, a proper album). The CD version of Vanille comes with an eight-song disc with new songs while the second disc contains bits of radio interviews and song introductions for the four singles released between Papillion and Vanille and there’s also solo acoustic versions of four songs from Vanille performed by Tony Jenkins, the band’s lyricist and singer, for Stagger radio in Cambridge UK.

Why do I say The New Fools work in pairs? Well, for me six of the eight songs on Vanille are connected in a bizarre reverse mirror way: one song is a character study about a lonely, troubled person and the following song is hopeful and sometimes about love. It’s as if on the Revolver album track listing “Eleanor Rigby” was followed by “Here, There and Everywhere.”

The best example is “The Boy Needs a Miracle.” A man sits in his local café, “Every day is just like the last/He sits watching the world going past.” Like his favorite music, now repackaged and remastered, his life has lost its meaning, it “seems empty now.” The world is changing too fast, his favorite programs are no longer on the television, and in a nod to Anthony Newley’s 1960’s musical, he screams “Stop the world!” he wants to get off.

As you begin to listen to the next song, with the lyrics “When you’re alone/Your footsteps seem to echo down/This city street hollow/A sound so desolate/It cuts right to the bone” you might think it’s a continuation of the previous song. But the song takes a joyous turn and “I Found You” becomes an ode to a new-found love that is so out-of-the-blue it doesn’t seem real: “I put my finger to your lips/Brush them with my fingertips/Just to make sure you are real.”

The next pairing consists of “Samantha Sits” and “Better Days.” Samantha “sits and thinks about her life/Ponders on the things she’s never done/She’s never been anybody’s wife/Never been somebody’s mum.” She’s happy that she’s never had to tow the line or bite her tongue but the choices she’s made have resulted in a life of loneliness.

As a result, Samantha has never had to deal with the difficulties that the couple in “Better Days” are having. But is that a good thing? It can be hard work: “We’ve had some hard times, Baby, but we’ve seen enough/To feel secure when the going gets tough/And though we’re not smart girl, we know it’s not enough/To close our eyes and pray for better days.” And he promises: “I’d go the extra mile for the sight of your smile.”

“If Things Don’t Change” and “…A Campfire Song” may be more of a stretch but stay with me on this. The man in “If Things Don’t Change” is the polar opposite of the people in Vanille’s first song “New Fools.” “New Fools” is not the band’s theme song but a look at all the people who bite down hard on the lies and misinformation they get from the government and media. “If Things Don’t Change” is the picture of a man who makes up his own mind and can’t sleep or even get out of bed because of it: “I can’t fall into line and have someone/Whose language and culture is different than mine.”

But what’s the solution? Well, as a certain foursome once sang “All you need is love” and “…A Campfire Song” finds another way of saying it: “But when I wake up and the sun still shines/And there’s magic when your eyes meet mine.” And it’s both friends and lovers that make a community: “Let’s start ourselves a fire/Hold hands and laugh for a while/Don’t you know nothing can go wrong/Cos you got me and we’ve got this song.”