Paul Peacock – New York Love Song (Album Review)

Paul Peacock launched his solo career with New York Love Song, an 11-track album consisting of reflective lyrics, energetic beats and tearjerkers.

Leading the charge is the album’s title track, a song on which Paul Peacock playfully asks, rhetorically of course, the listener whether they kickstarted their life with a coffee cup.  The song, featuring Paul Peacock’s androgynous voice, opens with a short, sharp staccato piano hit. An abrasive bass soon joins, partially burying the piano, and together they immediately hook the listener, signalling the track’s energetic intentions from the outset.

Lyrically, this is a powerful song about surviving hardships in New York. One has to be strong and do their best, which the narrator is doing on the song. It’s about, as the singer sings, not picking off the band aid, but ripping it off. While Paul Peacock’s earlier rhymes are messy, his rhyme set at this juncture is devastating. He utilises the ‘loft’-‘Cross’-‘off’ set. The narrator here is barely able to pay the rent at their New York loft. Be that as it may, you may still find them at Houston and Sullivan Cross.

Up next is ‘Sunlight’. For an album with ‘love song’ in its title, ‘Sunlight’ is more of a romantic love song compared to the title track. On this song, the narrator declares their love for a lover, using lyrics that show they care deeply, saying that their lover is all they need. The lover seems to be in a precarious state since the narrator says, for example, that they don’t care about their clothes. Technically, the lyrics on this song are quite long – or literary, if you will. This sees Paul Peacock alternate between two vocal styles. When he goes literary and reflective, singing about not caring what the lover wears, the delivery is half-singing and speech, if you will. But come the interesting parts where Paul Peacock’s voice soars. He feels more triumphant here. The lyrics are shorter. The instruments on this song are guitar and drums.

‘Whatever It takes’ follows. There’s a symphonic feel to this song, the piano and drums boosted nicely by the bass. The narrator here is in a cynical mood. They doubt whether they know what love is, again using devastating rhyming, Paul Peacock singing that there’s ‘pride and stupid ego until it’s adios amigo’. Cynicism aside, one marvels at such rhyming and creativity.  Besides the doubt and cynicism, the narrator defiantly says that they’ll do whatever it takes to make their way back to their lover.

Up next is ‘Lady Liberty’. Guitar and drums make up the instruments. Lyrically, the narrator’s heart has hardened, presumably from their personal struggles. They take issue with Lady Liberty, whom at one stage we hear is killing them. There’s a lady featured on this song, but their feature feels jarring. Love is again mentioned on the song, Paul Peacock singing ‘It’s the feeling that I love’.

Then comes ‘The Joker’. Unlike most of the songs so far, the song takes quite a while to build up. Compared to ‘Sunlight’, the lyrics on here have shorter lines. Paul Peacock comes across as aloof on this song. The narrator don’t mean and feel a lot. Backed into a corner, they’re fighting, expressing that they want to wrap their hands around the unnamed person. Their question being: did they freak them out? The follow-on question being, ‘Who’s the joker now?’ 

On this song, the narrator also uses an expletive. Layer by layer ‘like a fucking onion’, we hear, all that’s left is the poison. Accustomed to Paul Peacock’s mostly cheery songs, this one’s dark. One would probably enjoy it if they were also going through a dark phase.

‘No Broken Heart’ follows. This is a piano song, with the drums coming later on. Love takes center stage here, and the narrator is making some bold declarations. Having waited seven years from the first time they saw the lover, they no longer want to waste their life ‘loving someone else less’.

What’s more, they see no need to dance around the issue. They know they’d ‘risk it all for you’, they say.  Again, we see Paul Peacock’s cynicism, his narrator talking about a ‘field of fools in this town… where there are no rules’.  A bolder declaration is the promise that there’ll be no broken heart because of the narrator.

‘The Ballad of Timothy H O’Sullivan’ follows. On here, Paul Peacock’s narrator introduces us to a historical figure: the 19^th century photographer Timothy H. O’Sullivan. Wikipedia says that the photographer was born in Ireland, later moving to New York. Backed by the guitar, our narrator remembers the Richmond County Fair in 1855. He was a kid then and he was in the company of his father. Having never seen a photograph before, he received from a man his first, something inside of him clicking. He starts taking photographs, and later on finds a wife.

Paul Peacock returns to tearjerking stuff on ‘Kid Dynamite’. What’s astounding, we hear from our narrator, is that they ‘keep coming back again’. They can’t stay away. They tell their lover to write their goodbye on anything. This is Paul Peacock again at his devastatingly cynical self. They can also write on a crumpled paper. Then Paul Peacock soars, raising his voice as he sings, ‘What are you waiting for, my love?’ The narrator knows here that he’s no good for the lover. He says he’s cleaned up and changed. Either way, he’s of the mind that their lover knows that they’ll never stop fighting for them even if they go away. Drums and guitar make up the song’s instrumentation.

The guitar starts us on ‘Ordinary Life’, another tearjerker, guitar and drums coming later on. Paul Peacock starts slowly and then soars. There’s imagery of war on this song. The narrator wants their ordinary life back. They reveal that lately they’ve been feeling that they’re always in a war with their lover. Lyrically, this is a song in which the narrator blames themselves for hurting their lover so much. They apologize for not caring. Now they want to give peace a try, wishing for their ordinary life once more.

‘Still Got Love Left’ follows. Two lovers are on a major highway, ‘close to exit’. Their tank’s running out, and the narrator makes peace with the fact that they are alone. Upon reflection, they both realize they don’t know who they are and don’t know how things are gonna go. Be that as it may, the narrator claims that they ‘still got love left in me’. It seems to me that the narrator was very involved in the relationship, taking down all the words their partner ever wrote, memorizing every line.   Through all of this, we hear over drum and guitar instrumentation, as Paul Peacock sings, ‘Keep me whole. Keep me real’. There’s a female singer who backs Paul Peacock up on this song – a rare thing on the album.

‘New York Love Song (Reprise)’ closes the album. Though Paul Peacock sings in an angelic voice, the guitar and piano instrumentation gives us a melancholic sound.  The song returns to the album’s interest, which it also started with: New York. Having heard of kickstarting life with a cup of coffee in the first song, now we hear that you ‘can kickstart your life in a moment, Love’. You cannot find another place you belong if you don’t try, we hear. ‘This is just a New York love song. I won’t ever break your heart’, Paul Peacock sings.  

Score/Excellent. New York Love Song is an excellent album. Lyrically, Paul Peacock is an experienced writer. The album shows us a singer who can be moody, cheerful, and cynical. But whatever you might say of his music, his message is love should always win. He has a ‘never die’ spirit’.

Follow Paul Peacock on:

Instagram
Twitter