“My approach to writing songs is fairly naïve. I don’t want to be too clever,” ponders Ed Harcourt, a burgeoning singer/songwriter with the unique ability to please demographics that are normally at odds. His tousled hair, puppy eyes and choir boy voice can easily play the starring role in wistful teenage daydreams, and his remarkable songwriting talents and bristly British demeanor have had holier-than-thou music critics busting out all the hyperbole they can muster.
Harcourt’s third album, Strangers, is guaranteed to please both extremes of his fan base. For the snobs, it’s the record’s significantly compact sound, a slight departure from his ornately produced albums Here Be Monsters (2001) and From Every Sphere (2003). For the dreamers and romantics, it’s the concept behind the album, the most popular thematic element in the history of the world: boy meets girl.
“I met this girl, and we’re getting married now. She’s basically the love of my life,” Harcourt explains. “You know when you meet someone, and you just know it? This is a person I actually enjoy spending time with. She’s my best friend and my lover. I really wanted to document the excitement of the start of this relationship; I wanted to invoke that kind of feeling in a carefree way.”
When seen simply as a collection of pop songs, Strangers is an effective piece of work. Adding this thematic element puts it over the top; after all, Ed Harcourt has proven to be some sort of wunderkind when it comes to penning love songs full of optimism, passion and aching beauty. From the chaotic opening seconds of “The Storm Is Coming” to the frolicsome, Fender Rhodes bounce of “Strangers” and the lo-fi balladry of “Something To Live For,” the album is a love letter that doesn’t wallow in the mire of saccharine melodrama – something the artist absolutely despises.
“People get caught up in sentiment when they’re writing a love song, because it’s so personal. They come up with a mawkish, horrible, clichéd lyric, such as ‘Lady In Red’ – Dancing cheek to cheek? Fuck off,” Harcourt yells with therapeutic glee. “Whereas something like ‘My Funny Valentine’ is amazing, ‘Is your figure less than Greek? Is your smile a little weak?” It’s one of the most beautiful, flawed, fucked-up love songs. People get too caught up in the schmaltz when they’re writing love songs. But of course, there will always be hundreds and hundreds of stupid morons who are gonna go, ‘Oh, that’s so amazing. It’s so heartfelt and lovely.’”
Throughout the interview, Harcourt was careful not to attack any of his British contemporaries (and the stupid morons who love them), instead focusing on easy targets, like “Lady In Red,” Celine Dion and the Backstreet Boys. However, for all of his self-control, he just couldn’t help himself when asked about the qualities he respects or dislikes about fellow singer/songwriters:
“I never want to be someone who says [in a mocking tone] ‘I’m going to better myself; I’m going to be a better person,’ like a lot of bumbling, sensitive English rock stars always say in interviews. It’s so boring. We’re not all like that, you know.”
Regardless of whom Harcourt is referring to, this strong reaction reveals his desire to be seen as a different kind of singer/songwriter. By combining soaring melodies with truthful observations about the trembling wonder of newfound love, Strangers manages to do just the opposite. Whether Harcourt likes it or not, his music is sensitive, and the stripped-down nature of his new record makes this sentimentality all the more direct.
To be fair, Harcourt also points his wand of hatred directly at himself. “[On previous albums] there are moments of glory, then moments of patchiness,” Harcourt explains. “The whole thing was a little flat around the edges. This time around, I just said to myself, ‘It’s time to make your pop record. No more double albums that get turned into one album and then completely suck.’” (Readers should note Harcourt’s tendency to exaggerate. Both Monsters and Sphere are actually two of the most heartfelt and extravagant pop records of the last few years.)
“Strangers is more streamlined Harcourt,” he says. “I feel like I’m coming into my own and crossing my own sound, which is exciting.” It’s tough to argue his point when hearing “The Storm Is Coming.” The track kicks off Strangers with a wailing, stratospheric guitar, playing the part of an approaching electrical storm. When the band chimes in, it’s a classic power pop moment. The distorted fury of the intro suddenly becomes part of a jubilant harmonic tapestry. It’s what great songwriting is all about; the music undergoes the same metaphorical twists as the lyrics, which relate a gathering storm to the beginning of a relationship – both are volatile, unpredictable and inexplicably wonderful. When Harcourt sings the chorus amidst the bombast, “The storm is coming/It’s gonna make a beautiful sound,” it’s a great example of a simple idea being turned on its head to maximum dramatic effect. Storms have been used as metaphors ever since middle school kids started writing poems, but in the hands of a talent such as Harcourt, it all sounds fresh and full of life.
His skill in using Mother Nature for lyrical themes has always been prominent; Strangers continues in this tradition with “The Storm Is Coming” and “Something To Live For,” which starts with the line, “She’s moving like a forest fire/Leaving no path unscathed.”
“A lot of my childhood was spent in the country at my grandmother’s house,” Harcourt reminisces. “I spent a lot of time on beaches and in forests. When I started writing songs, I was in the country in the middle of nowhere, in this old house, and literally some of the references were true – I’d see fireflies, I’d hear the mice and magpies making nests, scratching in the floorboards at night. On the new album I wrote most about being in the city – in London – but I still always come back to tranquility and the violence of nature.”
When trying to evoke a particular mood on a recording, Harcourt suggests, “it’s all about being in a particular environment.” That being said, Strangers doesn’t quite sound like the environment in which it was recorded – away from civilization on the Swedish countryside. The imagery it stirs up is much more extreme, full of thunderclaps and rattling windows, loners screaming at the stars, and lovers getting drunk and giving each other strength. This album is about discovering the love of your life, a moment when hibernating emotions rush at you in a blaze of kaleidoscopic fury. Strangers is living proof that Ed Harcourt has found love, which is reason enough to give it a listen.
Appeared in the February 10, 2005, issue of Artvoice.