Songdog - A Life Eroding

Like Nick Cave before him, Songdog frontman Lyndon Morgan’s lyrics sketch life – in all its tragicomic glory and horror – over elegant arrangements of roots rock. On the Parisian ballad, Gene Autry’s Ghost, Morgan captures the hilarity of lust at first sight with the couplet ‘She said “I’m nothing special, but I give pretty good head”’, whilst Elaine finds filthy lyrics wrestling against Hank Marvin guitar riffs. The harmonica-led It’s Raining On The Old Cat’s Grave contains a line that begins with plaintive profundity and ends in plain silliness: ‘Let’s pretend we’re immortal/Until the Grim Reaper gets you with his chainsaw’. And therein lies the appeal of Songdog; with a track like An Old Man’s Love, lines like ‘you turned the world from shit into gold’ keep things firmly down to earth, with the tenderly produced music beneath it reminding us that life can – sometimes, at least – be as beautiful as song. [Joe Barton]