My introduction to William Crighton and his music came in a
church hall in Sydney’s Paddington a few weeks ago. He was supporting Melody
Pool and as he appeared onstage, his tall frame covered by a lumberjack shirt,
jeans and boots, he looked like he belonged on Mount Kosciuszko, hewing logs
out of massive trees. Then he opened his mouth to sing and everything else went
quiet. At first I couldn’t quite get a handle on his voice: his rolling,
tumbling way of articulating lyrics took a little bit of getting used to but
after one song it seemed logical. There was no other way for him to sing. There
was no other way to want him to sing.
The songs on Crighton's debut self-titled album were, as he says in
the liner notes, written when he lived near Burrinjuck Dam in south-western New
South Wales. The relative solitude of that part of that world can be heard in
the space between notes and lyrics that is characteristic of the ten songs (and
one extra version of ‘Woman like you’) on this remarkable piece of work.
On ‘2000 clicks’, written with his brother, Crighton
references Cold Chisel and offers an alternative anthem for young Australian
men, as he does on ‘Riverina kid’. On ‘Woman like you’ he sings ‘I’d never
treat a woman like you like that’ which immediately prompts the question, Which woman would you treat like that?
And that’s part of the appeal of this album: it’s a challenge, and it makes the
listener concentrate and think, for profound rewards. Those rewards include the
knowledge that you’re listening to a jewel, something as close to unique as
it’s possible to get in a world where everything seems to reference everything
else and there’s nothing new under the sun.
It’s clear why Pool chose him to accompany her on tour:
despite great differences in musical style, they both understand how to write
layered lyrics; how to be honest and mysterious at the same time; how to
deliver a song so straight that it’s heartbreaking. Neither is interested in
fakery, nor in being unsophisticated.
Crighton’s album leaves an indelible impression, as does his
live performance. He is, at least to my way of thinking, one of the most
important Australian singer-songwriters to emerge in the last few years. His
reference to Cold Chisel is not an idiosyncrasy: several of their songs
documented Australian life in a way no other act’s did at the time, and
Crighton has taken that tree-felling axe and cracked open a similar vein in the
earth. The Australian landscape, the distance between us, the way we tell ourselves
and each other she’ll be right, mate
and mean it even when we don’t, are all in these songs. This is not just an
important album, it’s a bloody good one – and that’s the highest compliment any
Australian can give.
William Crighton is out now through ABC Music/Universal.
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