This will be the last Scott Hutchison related Musings by the alphabet post so it makes sense we end with Owl John. This was the moniker he used for his Twitter handle and for this solo project. The story is once Frightened Rabbit was done with the tour for Pedestrian Verse (my favorite album of 2013) Scott felt compelled to do something on his own, recharge the batteries so to speak. The result was a brutally honest 10 track album of songs that while maintaining a lot of what a FR fan may expect still contains enough surprises and differences to sound 100% fresh on its own.
In other words, it is brilliant and once again proved what an incredible songwriter Scott Hutchison was, which by the way I HATE saying in the past tense. 😦 The music was created in Scotland with a couple of members from Frightened Rabbit, Andy Monaghan and Simon Liddell but he waited until he moved to Los Angeles to write the lyrics. That was when he was going through a period of alienation and man, the result of that is all over the album. In my opinion, the lyrics on this album may be some of the most intense the man ever wrote. “Songs About Roses“ where he sings, “chloroform the singer who has nothing to say / stare in wonder at the masses, sing along anyway” is a pretty good example of that. It took me some time to really “get it” but today I can honestly say I like Owl John even more than some of the albums from Frightened Rabbit. That says a lot.
I started writing this blog again once Scott had passed away. It has been been somewhat of a healing process for me because his death stirred up some stuff inside that I needed to take a long, hard look at. I am having fun doing this again so for now I will keep going. I already have up to F on Round 2 planned. 🙂 Thanks everyone.
“A Good Reason to Grow Old” is my favorite song from the album. This video I found online nearly wrecked me but it’s awesome. Cheers.
The Musings of Frank Gallardo 