Originally conceived as an album bemoaning the difficulties of trying to get his music noticed, Reed expanded the scope of A Proliferation Of Pointlessness for a general commentary about the state of the world.
Playing everything himself, it kicks off with the nimble fingerpicking of ‘Someone Else’s Ghost’, a number written at the end of a long and restricting illness, and his frustration at its dismissal by the medical profession but, more pointedly that while it may be gone, at least for now, the refusal to acknowledge it just means “it’s gone/To a more willing host/Now someone else’s ghost”.
On a lighter note, ‘Maverick’ celebrates those on the outside looking (“Is it me who is normal/While the rest of humankind/Live in little bubbles/And occupy their minds/With soundbites and trivia/The blind leading the blind?”) and how change generally comes from a determined minority, “While the rest of humankind/Talk to themselves in the street/Oblivious to the signs/There to protect them/From crossing railway lines/Or taking issue with a bus”).
With its deep resonant guitar and ambient effects ‘Shadows’ finds him doing a Dylan Thomas and raging against the dying of the light as he sings “When I can’t run, then I shall walk/When I can’t walk, then I shall ride/When I can’t ride, then I shall talk/When I can’t talk, I’m still alive”) and more generally defying the forces that seek to hold us back (“I won’t be frightened – by the shadows/I’ll be aiming – for the light”).
Conjuring the frequently present spirit of Roy Harper, ‘Same Sky’ muses on the future of humanity in a divisive and divided world and the children are the victims (“Too young to comprehend/Why their father left for work/And never came back again…Why their mother went for rice/And returned without a grain…Why their home was blown apart/By people just like them”) where it’s always someone else’s responsibility.
Given a circular fingerpicked arrangement with strains of a traditional folk backdrop, ‘Watching’ turns to the creeping proliferation of surveillance (“Every time you use it in the store/They know exactly where you are/Every time you dine, and drink fine wine/They’re chalking up the bars/Every time you drink a little more/Than ever you really should do/And every time you take a taxi home/They’re right there in front of you/Their eyes are watching you”).
Statistics show that men in the UK men aged 20–49 are more likely to die by suicide than any other cause, Reed on dark, resonant guitar and rumbling effects raising the issue of how it’s not always possible to spot who is at risk (“From the outside looking in/You’re untouchable you know/But even you have bills to pay”) with the semi-spoken ‘The Strongest’ (“it isn’t widely known/That the world falls down upon you/At the start of every day/So you dust yourself and stand your ground/Nobody notices anyway…/The strongest have the farthest way to fall”).
Harper again a touchstone, the discordant ‘Heroes And Warriors’ contemplates who are war’s true heroes, “those in the dirt, or with metal on their chest?/Or those waiting for letters with the news that they dread…Will it be those claiming victory on the back of their men/Who died without knowing the reason?”.
The longest track at over five minutes, the most percussive and atmospheric track and given a semi-spoken delivery, he describes ‘Change’ as “a commentary on 21st century life, and the basic values we seem to be losing”, watching the world’s existential crises as we might a horror movie, some of us gripped by fear, some going with the flow (“See the bird raise its young for a life on high/Some of them will stay within the boundaries/While most of them take to the sky”), the message being “Truth is what we make it/But your truth can’t be mine/And we should never fail – to teach the children/To see with their own eyes”.
The jangling ‘Us’ has him returning to a theme of personal responsibility on a world lived online and in isolation where we place the blame on others for things like climate change (“We may not think it’s us/Mountains burn and rivers burst/Too tainted now to quench our thirst…Too late for those “It wasn’t me’s”/It’s always been us”).
He calls on his Irish heritage for ‘The Moss’, another with resonant guitar and shimmers, which recounts the prosecution of the Great Hunger in 19th century Ireland and the famine-induced emigration (“A plague on their harvest/And the idyll was gone/The rest sailed to England/With the rising sun/Famine became The Hunger/And The Hunger became The Death/The Queen over the water/Couldn’t care less/Four thousand ships/Crossed Muir Éireann/People left behind/In the fields of Dubh ’47/Starved into their graves/From the cruelty of England”), the title referring to the metaphorical and literal transformation of what was once agricultural pasture.
Again with an Irish backdrop, the urgent, echoey ‘The Hill Country’ was inspired by a conversation from his student days and a derisory comment about those from the North by someone from the South’ (“don’t you go to the hill country/Where rebels hide in every lee/Watching you from every mountain top/Ready to take their fee”), the song how fear and prejudice gets ingrained, the hill country basically anywhere different to where you come from.
He closes with the ringingly picked, rhythmically driving ‘Project Freedom’, his response to Trump’s Project 2025 with the arrest, detention, and mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, and deploying the U.S. Armed Forces for domestic law enforcement (“You could truly be excused for thinking God above/Traded in his power for less than half enough/As the Dark Lord of Hades finally gets his way”) , as he passionately sings “Join us now to keep our freedom alive/Dig your heels in the ground/And dare to speak your mind”.
Powerful cries from the heart to a world that would rather turn a deaf ear, long may he proliferate.
Mike Davies
Artist’s website: www.johnreedmusic.com
‘Proliferance’ – official live video:
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