There are some dark themes amongst the light ones on the new EP by Warwickshire-based singer-songwriter Charlie Ward, but sonically it’s almost constant sunshine. The acoustic guitar on opener ‘Trippin’ On Your Love’ makes Hootie & the Blowfish sound funereal, and the chorus soars. The mood momentarily changes on ‘Changes’, which has the reflective ring of Goo Goo Dolls. “I’m going through changes / And it feels amazing,” Ward bellows like an amazingly resilient teenager. On new single ‘Favourite View’, he’s joined by an actual teenager – his daughter, Olive. The track is about the view that ‘what we have right in front of us is quite often what we blindly go in search of elsewhere.’ Indeed, Charlie and Olive sound absolutely thrilled to be in each other’s company as they perform a jangly duet that’s as catchy as Covid.
Japonica is mentioned in one of my favourite poems: ‘Naming of Parts’ by Henry Reed, which is a parody of British Army training during the Second World War. ‘Japonica’ is not a parody, but it is a song in which guitars glisten like coral and in which Charlie Ward’s falsetto reaches for the heavens. ‘Chasing Rainbows’ is another burst of optimism on an EP that’s more joyously buoyant than a lottery winner’s yacht party. If members of The Script hear it, they’ll surely be taking notes. On ‘Nothing Good Comes Easy’, Ward channels his inner Tracy Chapman and produces yet another chorus that demands to be sung by thousands.
The EP cover for Learning to Stay shows a flower emerging from a crack in a road. We can assume it’s a metaphor in two ways: beauty triumphing over the abyss, and Charlie Ward becoming more gloriously visible to the world.
Learning to Stay is out now via a multitude of platforms
Charlie Ward: Instagram |TikTok | YouTube
Review by Neil Laurenson
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