Your opening line, reasons Martyn Joseph, needs to make people stop and think.
So if you haven’t got one of your own steal a belter, that’s what I say: “No attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned, they are lower than vermin.”
Those sentiments are never far from my thoughts daily, but when Joseph sings the incredible “Nye” about Nye Bevan (the man who said those words on 4th July 1948), they are right to the forefront of the mind.
He plays it towards the end of his show here – and as ever it’s replete with a songwriting class wherein he explained his “first line” idea – but in microcosm, it is the entire thing. Full of empathy, full of skill, and full of hope.
Those three things are the three central tenets of both sets, right from the start of “Don’t Need No Cathedral” – one of a clutch of songs from his new “Things I Want To Say” record (out Friday).
“Here Come The Young” finds hope in the younger generation, but what follows, another new one in the shape of “Folding” underlines the genius (and that’s a deliberate word) of Joseph. His voice, fragile for once, half whispers the lyrics to this beautiful song.
Another of the new tracks “Albert’s Place” is what we might call “trademark Joseph” in that he tells one person’s story to represent the whole. That’s what he’s been doing all his career. He plays a song from 1992, ‘Working Mother” and it’s cut from the same cloth.
He’s capable of incredible sentiment too, but never schmaltz. Take “Driving Her Back To London”, for example. He reflects on his daughters’ independence, but in a proud and empowering way.
Indeed, family is always there in his songs. “Cardiff Bay” for one of his sons, “It’s a Fine Thing” for another, and that’s entirely in keeping with the ethos of a man so focused on people. He’s not bothered about fame, though, he’s the man who wrote the glorious, heartbreaking “Five Sisters” and declares that whilst he usually “can’t be arsed” to play his top 40 hit “Dolphins Make Me Cry”, he will tonight as an old friend is in the crowd.
Because his words are so wonderful, you don’t always hone in on the playing. His guitar work on “Under Every Smile” is exemplary, and he can carry his audience too, with a sense of fun. Not only is “This Light Is Ours” a genuine communal moment, but his Bob Dylan impression raises a smile.
He’s not shy about his influences, either. Dylan is a clear one, but if the scent of Springsteen is never too far away, then his encore of “If I Should Fall Behind” makes it certain. He’s skilful enough, however, to add his stamp.
As I leave and see people lining up to talk to him, to share their stories of what his songs mean to them no doubt, I’m struck by something Joseph had said at the crescendo of “Nye”. “I hope” he’d asked the crowd, “that you found something tonight to connect you to something bigger than yourself”.
If that’s the aim, then I’d wager that there wasn’t a single person in the audience who didn’t.
That’s the power of great music, songs that’d mean so much. I say this every year when I see him, but it bears repeating because it is true: Martyn Joseph is the finest singer/songwriter there is.
