Kevin Coyne
Marjory Razorblade

Lear - "Since when did you become so overflowing with songs, my friend?" The Fool - "Ever since, uncle, you gave yourself two mothers, you, of your two daughters; [...] Trust me, uncle: get your Fool a master who teaches him to lie. I'd love to learn to lie." - W. Shakespeare, "King Lear", Act I, 4

Popular wisdom says that you can only know the truth from children, the drunk, and the mad.

In that case, Kevin Coyne was the most sincere man in the world. A childlike appearance, always wearing sneakers, an awkward sprite of just over 160 cm, at least ten of which were a tousled curly mop. A hoarse voice, rasped by an innate passion for the neck of bottles, like and more than many of his dark-skinned heroes from the primordial Delta blues. And with madness, well... it wasn't enough to dabble in music, writing, cinema, and the arts, he also worked as a social worker in a mental illness clinic, a place from which he often drew glimpses of inspiration to populate the reality of his songs. But then, only inspiration for the lyrics? Depending on the case, he was described as "an alternative Joe Cocker" or "England's Beefheart". More than that, he was worshipped by figures like Sting, John Lydon, the Mekons, and Will Oldham, who had little or nothing in common. There must be a reason.

Certainly, the rock critical intelligentsia will say that the masterpiece of this fool from Derbyshire is undoubtedly his personal treatise on courtly love recorded as a duet with the icy arty companion of the German Dagmar Krause ("Babble", 1979). But in my ignorant heart, the twenty songs collected in a double album by Kevin in 1973 will always represent the symbol of how a spartan folk-blues with a rock flair can reach the highest levels of ragged poetry and street art.

The recipe is simple, like homemade ragù: an ancestral blues, electrified according to the lesson of the Chicago masters, discovering a zigzagging folk singer-songwriter soul, the kind used to touring the world with a hat in hand and an open guitar case. A crossroads that allows the meeting between Big Bill Broonzy and Donovan Leitch, to make Van Morrison both urban and country. All modernized in sound because there's a band accompanying you, but always spiced with the spiritual irreverence and spit of another whose name starts with Don, but his last name was Van Vliet.

It will therefore be only our problem to know how to lose ourselves along with this irreverent and raucous voice that can recite indifferently: rock-blues ballads with varying degrees of intensity ("Marlene", his personal way of making a "love song"; the heart-wrenching piano and slide elegy of "House on the hill", which amidst such marvel describes the horror of life inside a psychiatric hospital; "Old soldier", Dylan interpreted by the astral weekend Van Morrison). Or acoustic folk lullabies with a high emotional involvement such as "Talking to no-one" ("Talking to no-one is strange, talking to someone is stranger..."), "Jackie and Edna" and the Bert Janschian "Everybody says". There are also moments when the ardor of two/four rock takes over ("Eastbourne Ladies"), when R&B becomes as roguish as never before ("Cheat me", "Chicken wing") and when you even want to reconnect the black tradition of the Great Fathers ("Lonesome Valley") with the principles of the blues-boogie language deployed in the pubs of Albion ("Heaven in my view").

So far, everything is in order, albeit splendid. But wasn't there talk of madness? Here it is, in excess, whether it's skewed blues ("I want my crown"), hit singles for the soundtrack of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" ("Nasty"), mutant declensions that disfigure the twelve bars ("Mummy"), murder ballads in the style of Harper for voice and acoustic guitar alone ("Dog Latin"), sketches that beg for someone to fetch back their wits lost on the Moon along with those of Syd, Uncle Frankie, and the Cowardly Lion ("Karate King" and "Good boy"). We certainly won't be the ones to do it: because they will have to pick us up again, exhausted from the jig embarked upon to the rhythm of "Chairman’s ball" and especially we will find ourselves there again, stomping our feet on the wooden living room table like that madman Pablo, spurred on by the irresistible progression of the sevillana of "This is Spain".

Like the Shakespearian Fool, I believe Kevin would have loved to learn to lie. But lies are for us, the so-called "sane" and "regular" ones. The purity of sincerity, that is only for the mad. And for true Artists.

There was indeed so much method in that madness.

PS: who knows now, in that parallel universe where the Captain has just come to reside as well, how much fun they're having...