British rock legend GRAHAM PARKER returns with the second new single leading up to his forthcoming album. “We Did Nothing” sees digital release on July 7 and is up for pre-order/presave now (https://orcd.co/grahamparker-wedidnothing), impacting radio worldwide in the week to come. Already a fan favorite from its debut at Parker‘s solo performances in the US this Spring, “We Did Nothing” is a devastatingly honest look at the cost of inaction and apathy on both a personal and global level. Immediately gripping and heartbreaking, its starkness stands in contrast to to playful vibes of the album’s first hit single “Them Bugs” and begins to paint a picture of the depth and ambition of the album that features them both, due this fall from Big Stir Records.
Propelled by Parker‘s insistent acoustic guitar and adorned with tastefully understated accompaniment from The Goldtops — Simon Edwards (bass), Jim Russell (drums), Geraint Watkins (keyboards) and Martin Belmont (guitar) — “We Did Nothing” is an emotional gut-punch of a song, and quite possibly what rock and roll needs in 2023. Moving from the intimate to the global and back again with remarkable nuance in the space of two and a half minutes, it’s a marvel of songwriting that stands with Parker‘s best. There’s nothing quite so unflinchingly honest on the radio today, either in terms of its sentiment (part brutal self-recrimination, part plaintive protest song) or the soulful, dynamic vocal delivery. Graham Parker is, put plainly, shaking things up again.
“’We Did Nothing’ begins with the personal, then flows into the global on the first and second bridge sections, with the personal returning from then on,” Parker explains. “It should be called ‘I Did Nothing’ because that’s what I sing throughout. Unconsciously, though, I was deflecting from the personal, enlarging the song into a wider view, and I managed to throw in the line ‘A pandemic of stupidity,’ which made the global aspect deeply satisfying!”
There’s much more peak Parker songwriting to be found on the new record LAST CHANCE TO LEARN THE TWIST, and listeners have yet to hear The Goldtops really cut loose on Graham‘s new songs… but that will come in due time. For now, on “We Did Nothing,” Graham Parker delivers what rock and roll all too rarely does these days: grabs our attention and gives us a deeply compelling reason to look inward and outward, and listen to a master of the form at his very best.
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