you might have heard: PALM TREES

Palm Trees - Baxter Dury

Welcome back to songs you might have heard! This week I have been perusing the Latitude Festival 2019 (https://www.latitudefestival.com/) line up, and shuffle play delivered me Palm Trees by Baxter Dury!

Here’s what I thought…

THE SONG:

For all intents and purposes, Palm Trees seems to quite literally just be about being under a tree with a girl. The lyrics seemingly just flit between describing trees and acknowledging the presence of said girl.

And yet somehow, coming from Baxter’s world-weary lips, it all just seems to make perfect sense.

One of his more melody-driven songs, Dury sings throughout the verses, his creaky and wise sounding voice seeming to carry so much more meaning than is revealed through the lyrics.

The instrumentation buzzes out as a glorious haze, a sort of musical sunset, serene yet breath-taking all at the same time. A female voice aaahs throughout, as well as providing the chorus line of “sitting on palm trees”, and surrounded by the glorious, intoxicating production, it takes on an angelic quality, a creature from another world that has come to bless this song with its airy vocals.

The greatest compliment I can give, is that Palm Trees truly took me out of reality just for a few minutes, and placed me right into a fuzzy, tranquil dream that, frankly, I don’t want to wake up from.

THE ARTIST:

Baxter Dury, arguably overdressed

Dury is an English indie musician, who, in case you hadn’t realised from the surname, is son of famous singer-songwriter Ian Dury. There is clear evidence that his music is influenced by his fathers – the same spoken, matter-of-fact delivery of vaguely poetic notions, though this may be where the links end.

(Baxter) Dury’s music is relaxed, mysterious, and frequently features female vocalists on his chorus’ (presumably because his singing voice isn’t much to write home about.)

He more than makes up for that, however, in his lyrical mastery and casual yet engaging vocal style, coupled with chilled-out, hazy indie productions that just ooze out of the speakers.

While you could fear that he would be living in his fathers shadow, Dury is releasing music of a quality and nuance that, it is fair to say, more than establish him as a great artist in his own right, because frankly, he's just released banger after banger after banger.

Other songs to check out: Cocaine Man, Miami, Listen

RATING:

9/10

This is truly Baxter Dury at his finest. The instrumentation is beautiful, his lyrics are punchy yet mysterious, and everything strikes the perfect balance between relaxing and engaging, - this is a man right on top of his game.

I would recommend going to Latitude Festival just to see this man alone, but if you want to look at the full line up, it is available at https://www.latitudefestival.com/line-up-2019 and tickets are available here: https://www.latitudefestival.com/tickets (if you’re lucky, you may just see yours truly there!)

stream it here: