Teddy Thompson
Heartbreaker Please
Thirty Tigers
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Teddy Thompson, at his core, is an optimist. Who else could make a break-up record that's deep and sad lyrically, right down to its title, Heartbreaker Please, but musically feels like a skip through the park on a beautiful day? And that beautiful day is sometime in the late 1950s? It's a shockingly fun album, given its unfortunate origins.
Thompson is folk rock royalty, the son of Linda and Richard Thompson. While this is his seventh studio album, it's his second break-up record, as 2011's Bella was also about the end of a relationship and also lacked musical mope. But perhaps Thompson has a different take on relationships. After all, his parents broke up after making 1982's extraordinary Shoot Out The Lights, an album that touched on their marital unrest, and then went on tour together. So perhaps after witnessing that, other break-ups feel much more manageable.
The title track is a delicious cross between pop and country, that, luckily, never veers anywhere close to pop country territory. Rather, it's a nice callback to Little Windows, his 2016 country-flecked album with singer Kelly Jones. The soaring chorus makes it all-too easy to miss the desperate lyrics: "Heartbreaker please / Will you come back." If you ignore the words, it sounds like Thompson is singing a song of triumph. It's only upon closer listening you hear the sadness.
"Take Me Away" is a waltz, complete with strings. It's a pretty song, Thompson's lovely voice gliding along almost as if he and the melody are doing the spotlight dance at a very fancy wedding. But again, once you listen to the lyrics, you hear "How can you be mine / For all time." In the context of the song, it doesn't come off as stalker-y, but, like the Police's "Every Breath You Take," it's hard not to be at least a tiny bit alarmed by the level of obsession. But of course that kind of fixation is a component of every break-up. And it's brave of Thompson to show the less attractive parts of the healing process.
"It's Not Easy" is one of the album's biggest surprises, practically rockabilly, complete with a sax solo. Given Thompson's love of the Everly Brothers (they're frequent cover targets for him), it shouldn't feel so unusual, but it’s a joyful, danceable detour. Thompson commits hard to the ‘50s sound, still managing to preserve his voice. He owns the song, which is like nothing else on the album.
It's hyperbolic to say anyone can make a sad album, but it does take a special kind of songwriter to take heartbreak and recast it in happy music, while simultaneously preserving the pain in the lyrics. But even if you're not interested in the range of emotions, Heartbreaker Please is an enjoyable album, with a throwback feel that often recalls Van Morrison and Rod Stewart (in Stewart’s less cheesy moments). It's rock and soul music married to playfully sad lyrics and it'll make the more selfish among us actively root against Thompson's future relationships.
Notable Tracks: “Heartbreaker Please” | “It’s Not Easy” | “Take Me Away”
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