Everything Changes

The cover is a photograph of Peggy Seeger: long coat, her back to the camera, banjo case, beside a railway that disappears around a bend. The political activist and protest singer is, the image shouts, still in business. But with this, her 22nd solo album, released in her 80th year, everything does indeed change. There is no banjo, she is working with a fine band and she is clearly relishing the whole experience.

The songs, while engaged, are not strident. ‘Everything Changes’ notes, regretfully, the changes wrought on a loved place by those vandals ‘Duke Developer and Prince Progress.’ ‘We Watch You Slip Away’ is a reflection on mortality through the observation of a loved one dying. The lyrics of ‘Miss Heroin’ were noted down from the back of a toilet door. These songs raise political and topical concerns, but explore them through experience, story and personal detail. Seeger notes that, freed from having to accompany herself, she can devote herself to, and enjoy, singing. Her voice is more expressive and tender than in the past, and has grown somewhat wry.