Penny For

from Overcome by The Miserable Rich

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    Compact disc version of the new album.

    Our first studio album in 12 years - and perhaps our most meaningful and immediate.

    The title comes from an area of language I had been exploring with my students; the contranym – words which are the opposite of themselves. Dust, buckle and sanction are all good examples of these. I liked how The Miserable Rich Overcome could have interpretations of strength and of weakness.

    In truth, the album came about due to both these things. It is the product of us getting together because some of us were going through some particularly difficult times. The music was a good excuse to hang out. Pizza, beer. Talk. Occasional tune. After a while, we kind of had an album.

    On many hills in Sussex, you can see these beautifully bent hawthorn trees. They incredibly compelling, shaped by the harsh coastal winds, and it is hard not to anthropomorphise them. They are beautiful to us because they look like they have been through great difficulty. Without this – the less misshapen trees are far less eye-catching. The beauty is the product of this perceived pain.

    I thought this would be a fitting emblem for the album. I googled images and found an amazing one. I found the photographer on Facebook and asked him where it was. He was very kind and sent me a pin, it was just next to Cuckmere Haven – a very special place for me wife and I. it is where we took our son’s ashes – a place we go back to each year on the anniversary of his death to launch a boat I carve for him and mu wife fills with orange flowers she has collected for him. It is very close to the place we organise a sponsored walk each year for the charity we started in his name.

    I photographed the tree in winter and in late spring bloom to represent both the desperation and the hope that are part of making and meaning of the record. You can flip the vinyl over to reflect which side is closest to your mood.

    Includes the final song to be added - 'Poem For Suzanne'.

    Release date: 2nd Feb 2024

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about

This was the first song we wrote in the sessions with Jim, Will and I writing for the new album. It’s one of Will’s – originally a piano piece (a reprise may someday be forthcoming) but he preferred this dubby/proggy version. Somewhere between Kruder and Dorfmeister and Supertramp – where we’ve always belonged!

The lyric comes from a newspaper headline in NZ after the last UK election – a landslide for Johnson’s Tories. I’d have to paraphrase but it was something like ‘The UK bows down to its masters and obeys’

lyrics

‘A penny
For all your dignity
And sovereign control

A penny
For false humility
We’re stewing in a hole

Kneel to the master
Doff your cap
Courting disaster
Til one lands in your lap
Again


A penny
For vows and promises
That never come to pass
A penny
For trusting Thomases
Who kneel and
Doff your cap
Courting disaster
Til one lands in your lap
Again

The future coming soon again
The future dry your eyes
The future things were better then
The smoke curls higher in the sky’

credits

from Overcome, released February 2, 2024
Music: J. Briffett, W. Calderbank, M. Deering, J. de Malplaquet, R. Lovell
Lyrics: J. de Malplaquet

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about

The Miserable Rich Brighton, UK

creators of the fiery chamber music for song lovers: tellers of tales, writers of tunes, forgetters of punchlines. equal parts surly, silly and sumptuous.

the sound of one lip kissing.

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