A seductive acoustic outpouring of hope in a dark place, Gabriel Moreno’s “We Can Write England All Over Again” looks to the UK’s future with a humble, sanguine spark of light.
for fans of Bob Dylan, Beans on Toast, Frank Turner
“We Can Write England All Over Again” – Gabriel Moreno
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It is obvious that the narrative of history and reality proposed by the establishment and its representatives does not suit our sensibilities or ethical barometers. We need poetry and music to offer a different vision.
What do you do when you feel your hometown slipping from your grasp; when you see your city changing for the worst, turning in the wrong direction, and any hints of social or cultural “progress” seem to be thrown out the window?
You fight.
You fight for the society you believe in; for the mores and values you hold dear; and for your internal vision of a better world and a brighter tomorrow. For longtime Londoner Gabriel Moreno, music is his sword, and he wields it well on his heartfelt new song. A seductive acoustic outpouring of hope in a dark place, “We Can Write England All Over Again” looks to the UK’s future with a humble, sanguine spark of light.
The night has turned your compass into dust,
you are hanging like a tightrope in the rain
and now that London told you all its lies,
you wonder if there’s future in this place.
But girl if you’re tired don’t go away
we can write England all over again
and when they parade with their guns and their blades
we can write England all over again.
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering “We Can Write England All Over Again,” the lead single off Gibraltarian poet and singer/songwriter Gabriel Moreno’s forthcoming third studio album Whiskey with Angels. Winner of the 2019 Great British Folk Festival introducing stage, Gabriel Moreno (and his band, The Quivering Poets) have been proud members of London’s underground Bohemian singer/songwriter scene for the past decade. He released his debut solo album Love and Decadence in 2015, followed by the fuller band effort Farewell Belief three years later. Most recently, he released the stirring EP Poetical Resistance in the spring of 2019.
Largely self-produced, Moreno’s third full-length effort finds him reckoning with the turbulent realities of The UK’s current socioeconomic and sociopolitical infrastructures. The artist’s soothing, deep vocals sing plaintively of a culture wrought by political stagnation and a transforming identity; it’s “conceived to marry the profane and the idealistic,” per the artist, and it is within that framework that we are first exposed to “We Can Write England All Over Again.” Moreno sings unassumingly, his voice melting over subtle guitar work:
They say that stubborn men hold on to their flags
when life and faith have ceased to be aligned.
But what’s the use of living in a lie
when all you got are spiders in your mind?
But girl if you’re tired don’t go away
we can write England all over again
and when they parade with their guns and their blades
we can write England all over again.
For Moreno, “We Can Write England All Over Again” is a perfect reintroduction in 2020. “It is an attempt to reclaim hope through the perspective of artistic creation,” the artist explains. “Following the political disaster in the United Kingdom of the last three years and the increase in disparity and poverty, I felt it was impossible for the underground singer-songwriter to neglect the socio-political angle. I went into the studio in January 2020 and mixed and mastered the track during the torment of the lockdown during this summer of anxiousness and plague.”
“My idea was to fuse poetry and singer-songwriter troubadour music to reclaim the importance of words and tales through the tradition of the bard. The song adopts imagery and mood from the London poetry and singer-songwriter scene where I have been performing for the past ten years. The main premise was to express a hopeful vision of a future where we can curate our own cities through our artistic expressions and political deliberations. It is obvious that the narrative of history and reality proposed by the establishment and its representatives does not suit our sensibilities or ethical barometers. We need poetry and music to offer a different vision.”
Take me to a land in Innisfree
where everyone is listening to the band,
where faces merge in song and poetry
and plenitude is all that we demand.
Moreno’s stunning poetry and voice carry his music from start to finish. “What’s the use of living in a lie, when all you got are spiders in your mind?” the artist asserts in the second verse. His voice is neither a shout, nor a whisper; rather, it’s a caress upon the cheek, with tenderness and intimacy injected deep into his performance. Listening to “We Can Write England All Over Again” is a wholly seductive experience. We hear and feel Moreno’s hope for his home, even as he looks at it longingly, from a place of sadness and frustration. Rather than dwell in despair, he rises to the occasion with a new vision; “We Can Write England All Over Again” presents an artist choosing action over stillness, expression over inertia. It’s but one of many sparks that must fly in order to get the gears moving, but it’s a part of the movement.
Stream Gabriel Moreno’s new single exclusively on Atwood Magazine!
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“We Can Write England All Over Again” – Gabriel Moreno
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKVS8fC4pvc
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