• Rating:
"It takes guts to be gentle and kind..."
It takes courage to be good and kind, said the Smiths.
It takes even more to be delicate and fragile, introverted and reserved, silent and shy.
It takes courage to face others. It takes even more to face oneself day after day, to come to terms with one's anxieties, with insecurity, with one's fears.
It takes courage to handle solitude. It takes even more to give it up, to open the door to others, to put them before one's own needs.
It takes courage to be Keaton Henson, I believe. It takes even more to confront one's chronic anxiety to record songs in a home bathroom, with the rhythm set by the takeoffs and landings of the nearby Heathrow airport, to step onto a stage in front of a thousand people.
Keaton Henson is a slender reed amidst the storm of life, which has not broken him: it has bent him, curved him over a guitar, given him thin and agile fingers and a feeble, trembling voice, more powerful than a full-throated scream.
It takes courage to listen to a Keaton Henson album, like Dear..., knowing that, inevitably, in some song, in a single verse, in a handful of words, one will find a bit of themselves. It takes even more to cry.
Loading comments slowly
