The best thing I've heard this year (2)

The Hold Steady never did it for me. I saw them in The Button Factory in 2007 when they were probably getting the best reviews of their career (over here, anyway) as well as a heap of noise about their live shows. In addition, it seemed no reviewer could write about them without including the words Springsteen and Bruce*. So it should have been right up my street. But it wasn't even in my postcode. All the songs seemed to be about the same thing (boy loves/loved girl, boy does a lot of drugs, boy gets his heart broken) and frontman Craig Finn's stage thing did nothing for me. In fact, the only reason the night has stayed with me at all is because of what happened afterwards.

As I recall, we left the gig before in ended (I know!) and made our way to the bar to reflect on how The Hold Steady weren't the future of rock and roll after all. Some time later, when the bar was almost empty, Finn walked out and asked if anyone knew where the Phil Ly-nott (that's how he pronounced it) statue was. We told him that it was right beside a great rock and roll bar and we'd take him there. So off we walked across the city to Bruxelles with the singer of a band that we'd decided we didn't want to listen to anymore. Kinda funny, I suppose. Once we got there he met some friends and we separated him staying upstairs and us heading downstairs to kick the darkness out of another Tuesday night. Come to think of it, going to a bar late at night with the singer in a rock band to get drunker and dumber sounds like the start of a Hold Steady song right there. All that's missing is a drug deal, a fight, the cops showing up and waking up in a different state. We skipped that part - we had work in the morning.

So that was it for me and The Hold Steady. Although I must admin that 'Chips Ahoy', 'You Can Make Him Like You' and 'Chillout Tent' have all made their way onto various playlists over the years. So not completely out of sight but certainly not on my radar. I think they split up (or maybe not) but I knew that Craig Finn had made a couple of solo records that I never bothered with. That's until 'Maggie I've Been Searching For Our Son' popped up on a Spotify 'Discover' playlist sometime last year and wound up on my '2016's Harmonic Distortions' playlist. But I never listened to the rest of that record and didn't even know he had a new solo record until a couple of weeks ago. That's where we get to the latest best thing I've heard this year.

First of all. We're all older. I'm older, Craig Finn's older and the characters in his songs are definitely older. Wiser? That's debatable. But they're dealing with a new reality and maybe trying to deal with the consequences of the events described in lots of in Hold Steady songs. The opener Jester and June opens with an intro that might've been lifted from 'Boys and Girls in America': 

Well the bartender's friend sold us something
I think was probably coriander
Fourth quarter
Hail Mary
Wide receiver
Hail Caesar

The guy we've been waiting for
Came up from the catacombs
Walked into the bathroom
Put it under the trashcan

So far, so normal. We've got a couple doing some kind of dodgy deal with the friend of a friend in the bathroom of a bar. That's your basic Craig Finn set-up right there. But then you realise that the characters in the song are older now and all their old contacts, friends and dealers are gone. They used to be called Junebug and Jester, now they're called Jester and June. The clubs are gone, the buildings are shut and all that's left is a memory. And you're not convinced it's an entirely happy memory either.

It carries on in a similar vein. 'Tangletown' gives us two characters - him, older, divorced looking for companionship; her, younger, working late shifts and looking for whatever comes without strings. They're both seeking the finer things but there's no sense of contentment or satisfaction. Something's missing and they probably do know what it is. You can say the same for most of the other songs. The guy in 'It Hits When it Hits' who makes a connection with a girl but finds out when he arrives, unannounced at her workplace, that maybe things aren't the same in light of day. Or the light of a different bar. 

The record's mostly spoken-word centrepiece 'God in Chicago', is another classic Finn story. It's also the song that gives the record its title. Guy dies unexpectedly and his sister asks his friend to help her sell what's left of his drugs. The deal goes down, they spend a night in Chicago and go home. That's it. But their brief break from grief, to share a few hours of intimacy with each other – maybe the only truly joyful moment on the record – gives hope to everyone. It even manages to evoke the divine - while avoiding being a hokey stretch in the middle of all this sadness and regret.

But then again, why not reach for the stars? There's beauty everywhere. And you often find it in the unlikeliest of places. For the characters in 'God in Chicago' it's in the middle of grief and crime. For me, this week, it's in 'We All Want The Same Things'. It mightn't be for you – I wouldn't say I'd blame you – but it's stuck its teeth in me and won't let go.

Still don't like The Hold Steady though.

*And just so that I meet the requirements of every other Craig Finn article, let me just add that 'Tangletown' is the best Bruce Springsteen song that Finn's ever written. Right down to the 'State Trooper/I'm on Fire'-esque whoops and howls at the end.

Also, a word about that album cover. It's not a particularly exciting image, is it? And yet you can imagine any of the characters on the record sitting behind the wheel of that car while they think about where life has taken them. It's like an anti-Springsteen cover. The 20-somethings in Hold Steady songs never had to worry about sitting in gridlock while they're windscreen wipers moved back and forth. That was other people's lives. That's the lives of the people on 'We All Want the Same Things'.