Every great event needs a soundtrack, but in the world of Tom Minor, such anthems take more deft and dexterous forms. Let the likes of Springsteen do the fist-in-the-air anthemic stuff; his take on it swerves from the usual pomp and bombast and instead wanders a more cerebral sonic path, less Madison Square Garden and more Camden Garden Centre, and I mean that in the most affectionate of ways.
‘Every House Will Fall’ is the sound of America’s blue wave-soaked mid-term results as viewed from the mean streets of North London, a calmer and more considered take on the inevitability of the pendulum swinging the other way. Empires fall; it is a historical fact. Some fall to hubris and bloat; some fall as attitudes change; some fall when people find that the great and powerful leader is an illusory, powerless political figure hiding behind an emerald curtain of rhetoric. But fall they must.
Built on a bass-and-beat groove, he slowly adds slick guitars and laces through all manner of chiming sonics, incidental keyboard runs, and six-string motifs, but as always, nothing gets in the way of his clever, metaphorical, and marvellous lyrics. Why do simple sloganeering when you can play with clever analogy?
So, in his typically British, resolutely English, eminently (North) London way, our Tom gives us the smartest political song ever, plenty to think about, nothing to shout about, an anthem to hum in the kitchen whilst you do the washing up with the news on in the background.
In lesser hands, such a song would be full of the wailing and gnashing of teeth; Tom is altogether more measured a chap and instead gives us a song that stops short of making a fuss, causing the babies to cry and scaring the horses. It’s the English way… It’s the Tom Minor way!
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