| Category | Rating |
|---|---|
| Track Structure | 8 |
| Interest | 9 |
| Melody | 8 |
| Performance | 9 |
| Lyrics | 10 |
| Enjoyment | 9 |
| Recording Quality | 7 |
| Commercial Appeal | 7 |
| Overall | 8.4 |
If you look up “self-effacing” in the dictionary, none of the synonyms offered really cut the mustard. Timid, shy, modest, coy. Well, yes, sort of but no, it’s none of those things, either. Self-effacing is something rather more, psychologically, than modest. It’s a very definite down-playing of one’s ability whereas modesty, at least to me, is simply an absence of promoting oneself.
Now, on MP3Unsigned, let’s be honest, we run a panoply, a spectrum, a veritable smorgasbord of emotions ranging from the unabashed, unrestrained, self-promotion of any sort, at any time, for any reason, in any company, type of artist (no names, no pack drill) to, well, to frankly “The Foreboding” who has turned self-effacement into an art form. Just read his biog if you don’t agree.
“Thanks for taking the time to check out my page – I hope you weren’t too disappointed.“
So very British, isn’t it, and let’s face it (if you’ll pardon my very intentional pun) we are a nation of self-effacers (yes I know that’s not really a word but part of the joy of writing is making up new ones). He goes on…
“I thought it was about time I updated this bio as it’s now so out of date, and the excuse that ‘I’m still new to all this’ is no longer mine to use. If it’s crap it's because I’m crap.”
Well it should be clear to anyone who actually cares about music that the last thing this is, is crap. It may not be to your liking to have to listen to a song that is almost Darwinian in the way it evolves, nor to have to think too deeply about the lyrics (so much easier to write “I love you and you love me and oh how happy we will be” and, let’s be honest, there are a few artists on this site to whom the proverbially digit could be directed) but Jon isn’t one of them. If I might just ask you to read the lyrics to “dangerous metaphors” (a well constructed title):
This she knows well
In a dark corner of her heart:
What holds us together
Could tear us apart.
Dangerously fragile,
I handle with care.
But the beautiful filigree is sharp as sin,
And the hand should beware.
It shines like the morning,
Drawing me in.
And as I clutch it to my breast
The edges pierce my skin.
High walls and ramparts
You have fashioned from love.
And a throne on a mighty hill
To look down from above.
And I the poor traveller,
In rags at the gates,
Stare in envy through the bars
And curse the one I await.
The pure and the righteous
At one in your breast,
While the thief and the usurer
Dare them both to transgress.
And all of God's children
Run to touch of your hem,
While she rifles my wallet
And sells my gold to them.
And in the last twilight
As the world turns to sleep,
I embrace my fragile muse
And know she's mine to keep.
You see, you have to think about these words. No quick and easy here (btw – what does “usurer” mean again?).
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