Green is the colour

Helen McCookerybook often comes across, at a very casual first glance, as a pastoral folk singer but this is a bit of a misnomer: Musically and thematically, her work is much more complex. This is a reflection of McCookerybook’s musical history both in punk and post punk but also as frontwoman in the experimental band Helen and the Horns, who owe as much to Doris Day as they do to the Monochrome Set. 

Green is an album that encompasses musical nods towards folk, pop, jazz and swing while also containing a lyrical mix of gentle humour, wry observation and the out and out political. ‘Rainbow of the colour green’ features lovely harmonies and gentle melodies, while ‘Where is home?’ is almost French sounding, a gentle waltz of a tune with a perfect accordion sample that is reminiscent of Parisian cafes in the 1950s. It is a lullaby, a comfort blanket of a song. The pastoral lament of ‘New York’ meanwhile is short but equally sweet and ‘Change the DJ’ has an uptempo jazz feel that reminds me of Peggy Lee; it is one of my favourite songs on the album.

McCookerybook is especially good at telling complex stories simply and imaginatively, and this is showcased through two songs in particular: ‘Danse Macabre’ and ‘At the bathing pond’. ‘Danse Macabre’ opens with the irresistible line “Shoplifting books by the ton, piling them high in his room…” and is a giddy adventure of a song. ‘At the bathing pond’, as well as being structured as a great sing along, is a slyly subversive piece that relates the true life story of a peeping tom (plus his wife!) and his voyeuristic adventures at Hampstead Bathing Pond.

Green isn’t without its moments of melancholy, perhaps best demonstrated by ‘These Streets’ and ‘A good life with a bad apple’. There’s also political satire in the form of ‘So Long, Elon’, a particularly strong song:

 “We’re building a big rocket, with space for all our shoes” 

it begins

“with Bitcoin in our pocket, with nothing left to lose.” 

As environmental satire its more Randy Newman’s ‘Political Science (Let’s Drop the Big One Now)’ or Flanders & Swan than it is Barry McGuire's ‘Eve of destruction’, and there’s an atonal quality to the song which marks it out as the missing link between the Raincoats and Kirsty MacColl. Gillian Wood’s cello provides this worrisome note and her playing serves to gently suggest that things have all gone a bit wrong and that maybe we should be more worried about it all. 

This feeling of unease makes sense in the context of ‘21s Century Blues’ which, along with ‘Soldier Joe’, could be regarded as the most openly political of the songs on Green. ‘21st Century Blues’ appears to share similar sentiments to the Specials recent song ‘Vote for me’ only expressed in a more wry, observational narrative, while ‘Soldier Joe’ is about radicalisation and points to the ways in which fighters become victims of their ideology, a kind of modern day cannon fodder for a cause.

The album ends with ‘Saturday night with the London set’, which feels like the most complex song of the album. On one level it feels like the perfect jazz pop summer song, a modern day Spanky & Our Gang, until you listen to the bitingly observational lyrics. Thematically, the song probably has more in common with Blur’s ‘Charmless Man’ than with ‘Sunday Mornin’. But there’s also a wittiness that is more akin to ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion.’ 

I suspect that McCookerybook has witnessed a lot of celebrities and hipsters, who are ageing disgracefully, out on the town, but as the song nears its conclusion you realise that she isn’t just singing about The Beautiful People, she’s also celebrating those people who are merely out on the town having a good time. This realisation epitomises the heart of Green as an album: Even when McCookerybook is angry, she can still see humour and humanity in the situation.