Richard Godwin Is Alive And Well And Living In London

Here at Tiny Dancing HQ we attract all manner of waifs and strays from all over the world, bringing us their wares to show. More often than not we hear them out, nod sagely, thank them for their interest, give them a bowl of soup and then send them back from whence they came, "filing" their offerings with all due deference in an appropriate place; leaving posterity to judge where we dare not.

So it was with some trepidation that I opened a parcel left on my desk accompanied by a note from Tiny Dancer, flecked with blood and sick (he’d been for a liquid lunch with Debris I believe), saying, "Stardust old man, have had this sent to us - not quite sure what to make of it - needs measuring against the great male chanteurs, which is your area of authority. Leave it up to you to see if it's worth a post or if we should send him away with a flea in his ear."

The package was entitled Brel And Other Gallic Horrors and contained the usual stuff about being a fan of the blog, although he did reference a Brel posting I had done – the lad had done his research. He referred us to his cover of the Brel song Next, which some of you may know from Scott 2, and which Richard Godwin, for such was his name, had re-interpreted with his own translation from the French.

Taking my quill, I scribbled a reply along the lines of "Will have a listen tonight... Next! I bet it’s rotten, can’t wait!". I then called in Casanova Cox, a grubby faced urchin that we use for running errands, playing pranks, satisfying Debris’ carnal appetites and occasionally allow to write an article about some rightly forgotten band from the Britpop era. I gave him a shiny penny and sent him over to TD.

That night, after I’d feasted on my usual dinner of opium and whores I lit a fire, opened a collection of poems by the Metaphysicals, poured a glass of single malt and let the gramophone do its work on this Richard Godwin...

The first track I listened to was Next!. Now the thing with Brel is that almost all versions of his songs that the English speaking world has heard have the long shadow of Scott Walker looming over them. He worked from the translations of Eric Blau and Mort Shulman from Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living In Paris and very much brought out the bedsit romanticism in the songs through his persona of the sensitive poet for whom reality is a disappointment and people’s nature is too base. It’s that reading of Brel that’s prospered to this day to the extent that artists don’t so much cover Brel as cover Scott Walker covering Brel.

Godwin’s interpretation is arguably a lot closer to Brel and the tradition of the bawdy, whisky soaked balladeer, who drinks and drabs all day and must confront his demons alone at night. It’s a good version, notably for the guitar arrangement; Godwin really is a very good guitarist.

So a nice start, but it takes more than a "nice start" to get past the strict quality control at Tiny Dancing... then I listened to The All-Stars, one of his own compositions, and was sold. Melancholy loveliness of the highest order, beautiful lyrics and again some great guitar parts.

A quick glance of his influences on MySpace, apart from Leonard Cohen, didn’t turn up who it was reminding me of, although it’s a great list including most of my favourites. He actually really reminds me of Lambchop, but also, musically, Jarvis Cocker when he does more downbeat stuff, particularly some of the songs on This Is Hardcore (listen to The All-Stars from about two minutes thirty and tell me I’m wrong).

It was at this point that I realised we needed a Tiny Dancing field trip to go and see the man in action, so we donned our cloaks and set out.

A very nice curry in Euston was followed by Dancer, Debris and I venturing to Tommy Flynn’s of Mornington Crescent to sup a few ales and keep one eye on the football whilst hiding from the dull support acts. Once the danger had passed we wound our way closer to the stage to catch his set and also to get away from a very smelly old man who had taken a shine to Debris. It was well worth the trip.

The performance was really rather marvellous and lived up to what I was hoping for from the recordings that I’d heard, with a couple of unfamiliar songs at least matching what’s already out there. Currently everything is vocals and guitar, which means you have to make an effort to listen and unfortunately Flynn’s wasn’t the best venue for this as the occasional shouts supporting Arsenal or Liverpool trampled over some of the subtleties of the set. I for one am hoping that the future will bring a brass section as then I think the world will hear just how good the songs are...

I encourage you all to check out one of his upcoming London shows which you can find on his MySpace page as we all thought he was great and I for one will certainly be going back for another look at some point. As an inducement here are Next!, The All-Stars and Variety for your delectation. If you like these then you can also hear Josie and One Of Many on his MySpace page here.



Richard Godwin - Next!

Richard Godwin - The All-Stars

Richard Godwin - Variety


Ricky Stardust


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