Richard Dawson – End of the Middle
Allow this UK-based critic to illuminate some of Richard Dawson’s writing process for his new album. Dawson composed much of the lyrics in his allotment shed. An allotment is a very British concept; it’s a small area of land you pay rent on to use as a garden. They’re usually bunched together and situated on land on the outskirts of cities and are very desirable to city folks. We’re a small island, land is in reasonably short supply.
The concept of the allotment feels fundamental to Dawson’s lovely new record, which is similarly small-scale, vibrant, calming and, yes, very British. The idea of Dawson in his shed helps place him in a long line of British eccentrics: the unconventional man (it’s always a man) using his patch of land to come up with brilliant new ideas, see everyone from Isaac Newton to Wallace from Wallace & Gromit. Dawson has quietly spent the last decade making a name for himself as one of this island’s great contemporary musical eccentrics. His accessible brand of prog folk utilizes some wild conceptual ideas, such as the plant life-themed collaboration Henki and space opera narrative of The Ruby Cord. However, on End of the Middle, he’s focusing on the no-less-interesting world of domestic and day-to-day existence, composing lyrics from the vantage point of several generations of one family.
One of Dawson’s artistic reference points on his eighth solo album is the work of legendary Japanese filmmaker Yasujirō Ozu. Ozu’s films are patient, formally immaculate, profound dramas usually centered around family or domestic life. End of the Middle’s nine tracks are as similarly focused and stripped of any unnecessary clutter as an Ozu masterpiece. It’s a quiet, measured album, built primarily out of intricate acoustic guitars and simple, brushed drumming. However, interventions of discordant saxophone (“The Bullies”), jazzy clarinet (“Boxing Day Sales”) and vocals from Dawson’s partner Sally Pilkington (“More Than Real”) sporadically rupture the fabric of normalcy, hitting with the surprise force of a major life event.
Like the album’s cover (an image of a bus stop on a housing estate that pops with color and formal loveliness), Dawson’s odd, sometimes funny and frequently profound lyrics stand the casual and profound right up close against one another. “Polytunnel” is a gentle portrait of using the titular object, presumably by Dawson on his allotment. For every “thinning down the carrots and leeks,” there are references to “taking in the sunset” and the enigmatic “Karen was always the green-fingered one.” “Gondola” is another example of this fascinating juxtaposition. It’s full of references to daytime UK television and budget brands, but atop all this Dawson throws in oblique, melancholic lines that drop us into family life: “I wish I had gone onto higher education/but Tom was always the clever one.”
Then there’s the album’s title. There’s the possibility that Dawson himself is approaching the end of a phase of his career. It could be political; a nod towards the demise of political centrism that’s playing out in the West. It also could be an ironic reference to Middle England; a phrase used to refer to traditional-minded, middle class, small town-dwelling Englanders. It’s certainly a reference to the British idea of maintaining a stable, sensible middle or center, the sort that is currently under threat or feels as if it’s under threat, delete as applicable. There’s no definitive answer. Dawson’s too intelligent a creative to spoon feed us. End of the Middle may well be his most wise and profound work; a clear-headed testament to life and every strange, funny and sad route that it takes.
Label: Weird World/Domino
Year: 2025
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