JOHN HOWARD: "What God Is This?" (Think Like A Key)
The poet Rupert Brooke once wrote 'Think only this of me. There is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England." That sentiment could aptly be applied to ex-pat singer-songwriter John Howard, whose replacement nook for his homeland is now Murcia in Spain. From there, in the past two decades, he has delivered an endless cascade of high-quality songcraft that shows no sign of diminishment in either torrent or tone.
His latest single, "What God I This?," is a delicate hymn that echoes the tides arriving and departing like an endless longing, an incessant breathing. The visuals for this charming exercise in wistful nostalgia are a mixture of the homo-eroticism of the kind purveyed by the recently departed David Hockney, with shades of Catholic gilding, and tones of Visconti's "Death in Venice."
The song has a sublime sense of nostalgia. Is the man in the video remembering his own youth, or regretting those that he views as something once desired but lost? It is a beguiling ambiguity, as the song meanders like a madrigal toward its resignation to incoming waves. A lamentation to stark, layered regret; a vague chastisement of a deity who gifts with one hand whilst robbing that gift with the other.
"Lying on beaches
Watching the sea
Enjoying the golden ones
Smiling at me
Generous intentions
Shared amongst friends
Nothing was permanent
No heartbreaks to mend"
The cinematic video by Roger Houdaille, a Technicolor delight where vivid blue skies caress white-washed streets as handsome faces smile and wave from swaying boats, soothes and invites. Postcards brought to gaudy life, enhancing the occasional desolation implied by certain oblique moments.
"What God Is This?" is a meditative work of gentle contemplation.
It delivers a perfect entrée into anticipation for Howard's forthcoming album, which drops in August.