Alan Moorhouse, Small Voice Crying (Schubert, 2001)
Alan Moorhouse is a quirky Cornish singer-songwriter living in Koln, Germany. Small Voice Crying is his first album, after years and years busking on the streets of Europe. Actually he's played inside as well, and years of musically standing on his head for deutschmarks has led to a batch of interesting lyrics. Many of his songs are about street people, people on the margin, and other topics of social injustice. At the turn of a hand, however, Moorhouse can turn from serious to completely goofy, in a characteristically British way.
The best of his songs is "Johnny Petto," a long, modern narrative with ancient and generational analogs; it is about a girl named Lucy who leaves home young to see the Pistols in London, and travels "to see Europe" accompanied by her boyfriend Johnny Petto and relentless, pathetic bad luck. They constantly scrape bottom. In the end:
"When I told him I was pregnant Johnny turned and did a bunk
He fled up off to Dusseldorf and started doing junk..."
Lucy and her baby go home to the same English town she grew up in, to relive the life of her mother.
The album is named for another song, "Small Voice Crying," about a lifetime of scrambling on the margin with no one caring about any of it. "Germany One" presents the view from the other side. "The river is rising and bursting its banks...but I won't shift no sandbanks." "I Used to Have A Name" is from a homeless man on the street. Moorhouse used his memories working in a foundry and as a bus driver to write "Men Of Steel," an a capella song with a traditional base about foundry workers.
The goofy songs are just as interesting. The characters in "Holiday Romance" are affluent, attractive, and surprisingly good people. Too bad their Big Night was spoiled by a rout by boorish lager louts in the street. But all turns out well. And then there is the tragedy of "Jack the Stripper." Perhaps this one is best seen live.
Arrangements here range widely from guitar and harmonica to bossa nova pop. Moorhouse's voice is pleasantly British and he sings well in a folky way. But the most important part of the album is his lyrics, his successfully original portrayals of the pain and pleasures of others.
