Debut albums, more often than not, are a collection of songs over which the hip, young songwriter has very little control; such is the urgency for the artist to bare his soul. However, when you release your debut album some 30-odd years later than originally planned, the above rules, it seems, no longer apply.

Mick Terry’s album, The Grown Ups, displays all the charm of a debut record, but, with the classic hallmarks of a mature songwriter who is comfortable in his own skin. The nine songs are, very much, of a reflective nature and loosely based on/inspired by a diary that Terry kept, religiously, every day back in 1982. The songs all have their roots planted firmly in the field of Pop and it doesn’t take a musical scholar to spot the obvious nods to the Beatles and the Beach Boys. This is not a pastiche record, by any stretch of imagination, moreover the influences are used to evoke a feeling or a moment lost in time. In the same way as a photographer uses light and shade to create a mood, these musical snapshots form a sort of audio palette colour generator for a process Terry likes to refer to as “painting with audio”. 

The lyrical themes of love, loss, faith and hope that run through the LP are those of a man looking back on his childhood and coming to terms with the man he has become. When he sings the line “What happened to the 60’s dream they pitched you? Turns out that it was just on loan to you” in “Tinseltown”, it is reminiscent of the great wave of “pie in the sky” optimism that coursed through the 1960’s, only to see it crash onto the desolate shores of the grim, early years of the 1970’s. This is counter balanced on "Comets" with him stripping away all of the bloated components of modern day, 9-5 existence to uncover the hidden beauty of a city “bathed in a pool of light” on “a summer, star filled night”. There is no doubt that the lyrics here are as much a part of the musical fabric as the melodies themselves.

The album opens and closes with the “Hoxton Song”, a tale of growing up and, ultimately, looking back as a grown up. There’s a real “Itchycoo Park” feel to this track that, albeit slightly bittersweet, provides the perfect accompaniment to looking through your old school photos and spending an afternoon back in the 1970’s. The juxtaposition of the older, wiser author narrating the 1983 New Year’s Day thoughts of his teenage self lend considerable weight to the carefully crafted “Safe From Sound” and you may find yourself searching out that dusty vinyl copy of Colin Bluntstone’s “Say You Don’t Mind”. The vocal arrangements are the standout feature on this record and with Philadelphia power pop legend, Jim Boggia, guesting on both “Hoxton Song” and “Tinseltown”, it’s clear that Terry has an eye (and ear) for the finer things when it comes to producing classy and intelligent melodic pop music. 

The years following the aforementioned diary have obviously helped shape Terry’s well travelled, insightful view of the world, and even if he no longer subscribes to “the teenage pathos and poetry” of his younger days, there’s no getting away from the fact that, above all, lyrically, he is still an optimist and, a romantic one, at that. John Lennon once said “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”. So, even though he may now be classed as one of “The Grown Ups”, let’s hope that Mick Terry continues growing up in public.


Songwriter, founding member of Swan Dive.

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