Richard Hawley belongs to a long tradition of crooners, dating back to Sinatra (In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning) and on through Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop, Ian Curtis and Ian McCullough to Hawley’s former bandmate, Jarvis Cocker of Pulp. The Coles Corner (no apostrophe) album is a very nice listen, and the title track is a definite highlight.

The song builds like a slightly more hopeful version of the song ‘In The Wee Small Hours…‘ (that’s three mentions now for the Sinatra classic), with syrupy strings and a very Christmas feel to it. You almost expect the first words to be “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…”. Then the song picks up a jazzy feel, with brush drums, lugubrious piano and Hawley’s deep, thoughtful voice:

“Cold city lights glowing,
The traffic of life is flowing,
Out over the rivers and on into dark.”

The lazy beat is reminiscent of Costello’s ‘Kid About It’, and is a melody that will stay for you a long time. It’s a melody to be sung at the end of the night, with the last glass of single-malt whiskey in your hand, as you empathise with the song’s narrative of a trip into town to find serendipitous love.

Here’s the video on YouTube. Another Hawley favourite of mine is ‘Born Under A Bad Sign’, also on Cole’s Corner. Get this album if you can, it’s a very soothing listen, and repeated listens will reward.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 11th, 2008 at 12:30 pm and is filed under Alternative / Indie, Blues, Jazz & Soul, Pop. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.