Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The lot of the toolmaker is fraught with the ebb and flow of time, for a period they can be busy making custom tools for society to grow, but when society consumes itself and refuses to invest in the talent that makes life worth living, then the Toolmaker’s Blues are there to be heard, to be seen, to be felt deeply and with regret on how the local community acknowledges that they have become stagnant and dulled by the pursuit of every purchase, every job and meaningful expression, to be given away for free.
Mark Harrison’s superb new single, Toolmaker’s Blues, may be heard as a return to the days when the message was clearer, that by looking after one, we had the responsibility of looking after all, and that sense of meaning may be seen as by many as quaint, a track in which the symbolic ghosts of tradesman and artisans in the past were given the chance to flourish, whilst still providing for others the means of labour to place before the country the tools to make the land they lived in, great.
However, it should arguably be viewed as an honest retort, that moment when symbolism and the old sepia feeling is replaced by rightful indignation. For the words of Mark Harrison need to be taken seriously, they need to be placed on every wall next to the Simon and Garfunkel blistering attack on the neon signs and manmade gods, and Rush’s warning of profits on the studio walls, that without the means of production being fairly and equally measured out, how do you wean the public off the belief that an artist should work for free that art is a hobby.
The track is indispensable to the way we should return to the days when the cycle of growth was seen as hand in hand with everybody’s particular belief of wanting the best for the place they lived, without the toolmaker you cannot have new civic buildings, homes for those in need, places in which to spend precious recreational time, we need to get off the fix of belief that only the conglomerates, the big businesses, can help build society. It takes every artisan to be heard, and in this outstanding song, lays the crux of the matter, and the anthem of strong-willed mantra that is required listening.
Mark Harrison releases his new studio album, The Road To Liberty, on June 30th.
Ian D. Hall