Mike Skinner is probably one of the best lyricists around in music, and has produced some of the most interesting pop music over the last few years. His work as a whole has described what it is to be a man today, the rub between being a cheeky lad and a vulnerable human being. It’s because of my admiration for his work that I really don’t like this track.
Musically it is a bit of a dirge, there are the odd lines that do indeed hit various nails on the head, but what I sense is that his feelings of genuine loss and the pain of losing his father and coming to terms with this are far too fresh to be of real use in a creative sense.
This piece reminds me of the time when an old art tutor of mine and I were talking about using personal experiences in work. He had a student in his final year of his degree who had suddenly lost his father and had turned his back on his usual work to “explore” his feelings about his father’s death through his work. Well the work was truly abysmal, but as my tutor said, “how do you tell someone that what they’re doing is total crap?” Conversely, when I graduated another lad made a piece about his feelings for his dead father that was brilliant, but time had passed and wounds had healed.
They say write about what you know, but sometimes things should be left like young wine in a cellar to mature and only consumed when they’ve mellowed enough to become useful. Never went to Church, at times is touching, but Skinner has yet found the necessary distance to avoid the abject mawkishness that overrides “Never Went to Church”, it has none of the lightness of touch of “Dry Your Eyes”, that would elevate it beyond ‘therapy’. At the same time I feel like a real swine slating the song because, losing a parent is probably one of the most heart breaking and painful experience anyone can go through and it’s shameful to hit anyone when their down. Good luck Mike. For more information you can visit: http://www.the-streets.co.uk
