More about: Frank Turner

There are two versions of me. Well, there are many more than that, but there are two that I would like to focus on. Let’s go back to 2013: the first version of myself is 15 years old, studying for their GCSEs, and is currently listening to a brand new album instead of doing their work. Yes, they are currently in the run-down music block of their secondary school, and what they are doing is technically musical, but it is far from the classical notation on Sibelius that their grade counts towards.

Instead, they are listening to a Winchester troubadour sing about heartbreak, Amelie, tattoos and extras from Skins on repeat through the secrecy of their headphones. Running up their sleeves, and they’re across from their boss. Well, teacher. Flash forward a decade, and this same person is in a converted music hall in Shepherds Bush amongst a mass of sweaty crowd-surfing 30-somethings, still chanting the words of this album like religious scripture. It’s the album that links these two versions of myself together, and it’s being played from front-to-back (in a slightly re-ordered fashion), in true celebratory pomp. Tape Deck Heart by Frank Turner. 

"It was literate, fun and most of all, honest."

What drew my 15 year old self towards Frank Turner? 2013 was the year of Peace, Palma Violets, AM by Arctic Monkeys, a resurgence in indie sleaze, surely that’s where my fickle young head would have been turned to? I mean, of course my head went there eventually, but I still vividly remember the first time I heard ‘Recovery’ on the radio. I was flabbergasted; how can somebody sing that many words in one verse without running out of breath? It was literate, fun and most of all, honest. The songwriters I fawned over at the time such as Matt Bellamy or Damon Albarn often hid their intent behind metaphors or characters, but Turner writes in a remarkably open, dare I say… frank, manner, his heart could not be more on his sleeve if he tried. 

Of course, he comes from a grand lineage of open-heart singer-songwriter types, your Bruce Springsteens, your Joni Mitchells etc, alas my 15 year old self had no time for them. Also, this was worlds away from the acoustic dross on the radio, the nu-Mumford-wave of stomp and holler folk that polluted the airwaves, ‘Recovery’ was fun! And effortlessly quotable; “if anybody ever asks us, let’s just tell them that we met in jail”, a particular highlight. It’s worth mentioning that Turner came through the Nambucca scene that he shared with not only Mumford & Sons, but the likes of Jamie T, Laura Marling and Florence Welch, all of whom achieved mainstream success in an instant. Whereas Turner played the long game, sticking to a DIY aesthetic and winning fans through hard graft and endless touring, all manifesting in Tape Deck Heart being the album that the mainstream finally stopped and acknowledged. Sure, he played Wembley on the England Keep My Bones tour, but Tape Deck Heart gave him a full arena tour (including the O2), as well as a top 40 hit with ‘The Way I Tend To Be’. And all on album number five, nearly ten years into his own solo career. 

But what was it about this album that my 15 year old self found so special? This is, after all, a breakup album, something that that first version of me couldn’t really understand, having never been in a relationship. For this, let’s let 25 take over, who is currently deep down in that Shepherds Bush mosh pit, watching the man himself play it all live. Tape Deck Heart is an unconventional, rare breakup album in the sense that it is being narrated by the instigator of the split, and not from the victim’s point of view.

The lyrics are full of regret and remorse, anger and bitterness, and finally clarity. Before playing ‘Anymore’, Turner notes that it’s a rare moment of unkindness in his catalogue, a song full of contradictions and hard truth. He opens the stunningly quiet track by describing his breakup as “the single hardest thing I’ve ever had to do”, before admitting in the chorus that actually “it wasn’t hard, it was kind of simple”. This admittance and openness to examine your own personal failings on record is nothing short of admirable, and it’s apparent throughout the whole album that Turner’s intent is to hold himself to account. The blistering ‘Plain Sailing Weather’ is full of self-loathing and futile gestures (“when you see me for all that I am, I couldn’t make mistakes to make a difference anymore), and ‘Good & Gone’ aims its softly-spoken bile at the subculture of Sex, Drugs And Rock N Roll that tells tales “that leave out all the dark sides”, often forgetting the very real people that are hurt as a result of these stories; Turner singles out Motley Crue for this, their infamous warts-and-all biography The Dirt being the apex of all this bravado. 

"We see ourselves in Turner’s failings, and that sense of empathy creates something truly beautiful."

The first half of Tape Deck Heart hits its climax in ‘Tell Tale Signs’, with Turner utilising his Amy character one last time to cathartic effect. Amy is essentially a stand-in name for people in Turner’s life, who previously appeared on ‘Reasons Not To Be An Idiot’ and ‘I Am Disappeared’, and the trilogy is completed here as a dying relationship is described in all of its ugly detail. It provides a moment of whiplash on what is Turner’s most glossy sounding album to date, getting this minimal song with hauntingly honest lyrics about his own self-harm. My own personal highlight of the album comes in the form of ‘Broken Piano’, the most radical musical departure of the piece. The first half is drenched in intimate ambience and the second half amps the sound up to a stunningly expansive finale, built for the arenas he would later play in. It lingers on the poetic image of Turner finding the titular broken piano beneath his ex’s window, the instrument having been vandalised “with cruel care, not thoughtlessly” so only minor melodies can be played. It’s an lyric that people with the most basic knowledge of music theory have nitpicked the hell out of, the words “relative minor” always being on the tip of their tongue, but it doesn’t ruin the simple, yearning poetry that this song provides, the piano itself, “a hulk, a rusting bulk” a metaphor of the mess Turner made in this relationship, and all he can do is ruminate on it. We see ourselves in Turner’s failings, and that sense of empathy creates something truly beautiful. 

“I used to think that I would never live past 25” Turner sings during ‘Losing Days’, a line that essentially provides a bridge between these two versions of myself. You see, my 15 year old self couldn’t see themselves living into old age either, and yet here I am at 25, having miraculously survived, feeling every day of my years creeping up on me, watching as all my small ideas suddenly become commitments. I reached this shore, and I’m not sure how to feel. Who says time travel isn’t possible?

Across this bridge, I see not just these two versions of myself, but the intervening sixteen other versions of myself at various Frank Turner gigs over the years. There I am outside Rock City in Nottingham, drinking Buckfast out the bottle with my best mates. I can see myself up on one of those friends’ shoulders on a sunny afternoon at Leeds Festival, and now myself and another one of my best friends are in formal attire, drinking red wine at the prestigious Symphony Hall in Birmingham. We’re suddenly sat on hay bales, socially distant from any signs of dancing at the Nottingham Arboretum in 2020, before we’re suddenly thrust back together in a tent in Donington Park one year later, gathered together and singing for our younger selves. Ten years on, I’m in Shepherds Bush Empire, all alone, and looking back on all those wild memories as the refrain of ‘Polaroid Picture’ rings out. “We won’t all be here this time next year, so while you can, take a picture of us”, a song that gets more and more relevant as time goes on. As does ‘Oh Brother’, as I think about the friends in those pictures who have disappeared over the years. One by one, their exits and entrances embellished in my mind, until now there’s just me.  

"No matter how my musical preferences shape and shift over the years, this album, and Turner’s music will always be a part of my patched up, patchwork, taped up, tape deck heart."

But I’m not alone. I never have been. You see, during all those years of hard touring, Turner didn’t forge a fanbase, he formed a community. People from all walks of life who feel the same as I do, have subtly different stories, but are equally as passionate about the music we’re hearing, have seen themselves reflected in Tape Deck Heart, and have spent the past decade having carried this album with them dearly. “We’re all broken boys and girls at heart”, a line in ‘The Fisher King Blues’ that speaks true of the congregation of lost souls as aptly today as it did in 2013. So does ‘Four Simple Words’, a song strategically positioned just after ‘Tell Tale Signs’ on the album to genius effect. It’s become one of Turner’s signature anthems, a companion piece to his classic 'I Still Believe', and a rallying battle-cry about the healing power of music, specifically live music. Because what is better than going to a gig at the end of the day? Losing yourself completely in the thrums of dancing and wearing your voice out by singing every single word back. It’s euphoric. It’s why I’ve spent the past ten years at Frank Turner gigs wherever I can, even though my music taste has evolved significantly since then.

“I want to dance”: these four words aren’t just simple, they are etched inside my soul. They were back in those Nottinghamshire school days, and they are today in the haunts of London. No matter how my musical preferences shape and shift over the years, this album, and Turner’s music will always be a part of my patched up, patchwork, taped up, tape deck heart. 

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More about: Frank Turner