Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It is a dream for many, the promise of the romanced thought but one delivered with a generation of force that insists it can handle all the extreme and negative judgements that go with it, that to be able to declare when you have had enough of the ill considerations and personal set backs that I’ll Sail Away, is to uphold your own pride, your belief and your own view, that you are worth more than others will ever see in you.
It is a reasoning that is enforced with gravity and deep resonance by Jon Meadows in his latest single, a voice that carries anger and haunting beauty throughout the track and one which carries the belief of many in each line of the song.
We must always come to an understanding with Time and with our own intuition that we must be allowed to determine the moment when life, with all its toxic futility, with its unremarkable fury, becomes too hot for us to handle, and rather than persisting, rather than doggedly perusing the outcome in which we will be ground down and our souls turned to dust, we should know in our hearts when we should step back, when to sail away with conviction.
It is in the beauty of the words that the mast is hoisted, the deep underlying introspection to which Jon Meadows places meaning and trust, and with that fair wind catching the sails, the horizon is no longer a distant dream, it is as real as the shore that we stand upon and wonder where life would take us if we had the courage to remove ourselves from the deadly aims of others who only wish to harm.
To have Jon Meadows back and in such form is to know that Time sometimes offers us a way forward without having to give a reason to look back with regret; a vigorous and demanding song, sung with elegance and compassion. I’ll Sail Away navigates between the storm and the once thought of safe harbour, releasing instead a map of solitary pleasure to which the route is unexplored and yet worth all that the captain can see for themselves; a treasure chest waiting to be opened.
Ian D. Hall