What Are We Trying to Say

Teesside-born husband-and-wife duo Stu and Debbie Hanna have racked up a dozen studio and live albums in a near 20-year career. Their 13th album was written through the pandemic, a time of fear and uncertainty when the media became important in keeping us honestly informed about the world but often failed to do so, prompting the pair to reflect on the ways news can be used to inform, entertain or even control us.

Tales of desperate, even dishonest, news gathering, as on the title-track, rub shoulders with wry observations about lagging behind technology (‘Before I Know It’), while newspaper headlines lie at the heart of the song ‘Anastasia & William’, the true story of a romance between a pioneering Northumbrian newspaper editor and a Russian writer doomed by a disapproving Russian revolutionary press, as well as the tongue-in-cheek ‘And Finally’, inspired by those unlikely feel-good stories that can enliven otherwise doomy despatches. Dubious reporting is not new, of course, and the duo alighted on two 19th-century songs from their native North East on the subject, including ‘The Barber's News’, the jovial but cautionary tale of a gossiping barber who spread news of a sea-monster swimming in the river Tyne.