Philip Jeays - Victoria

by Steev Burgess

published: 8 / 6 / 2025

Label: Philip Jeays
Format: CD

intro

Romanitc and reflective latest album from Jacques Brel-influenced singer-songwriter Philip Jeays

I remember a category in New York called Adult Alternative, which in the absence of an established English language Chanson scene, is as good a category as any to place what must now be a dozen or more Philip Jeays albums. It's been four years and a life threatening illness since the last Jeays album 'Blossoms and Bicycles' and this one seems to pick up where that double album left off, with some excursions that flirt with 60's French pop as well as his usual chanson. The opening track 'In Love Again Marie' takes us back perhaps, to his life in Provence, with the character Marie, last heard of in the song 'Don't Cry Marie' appearing again but in a more jaunty pop song set "in a world that gave you nothing but your Mother's smile and a love of sad songs" but smiling here once more, nonetheless. Philip Jeays' singer/songwriting career began in Arles, France, after he heard Jacques Brel and events and characters from his formative years here often populate his songs. Fourteen musicians and singers join Jeays on this album, which features piano, organ, brass and strings with a jazz style of what seems like brushed drums, sometimes behind the guitar of Jeays, but the songs seem light of touch. The pacy title track 'Victoria' (the place in London not a person) is a brilliant example of what Jeays does best, examining the intricacies of the human 'heart' rather like a Eric Rohmer film. The protagonist stepping out in the rain from the station proclaiming "maybe I'm just kind of crazy about you", "can't see myself without you" and yet " maybe it's "better to walk away than tell you so" before the arrival of "the gilded boys of Summer" and heartbreak. This goes straight into my top ten Jeays songs, Go make the movie. 'The Rain' is a piano ballad observing others in the rain, including two lovers where " She's old enough to be his mother/He's young enough to break her heart" and includes a girl poking her tongue and having fun before " tomorrow will come with the ways of the world" where you find " the dreams you replace with whatever you get/Now she just stands there, soaking wet". "There was blood on the jewels you stole" is another cinematic lyric which reminds me of 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being'. It tells of how what seems like nothing to one person can be everything to another and decisions made while young can have life long consequences. It's sung with Julia from the Indelicates singing out inevitabilities in the chorus "underneath the pose it's just the same old song" and the like, through to the introspection of the last verse. 'Before There Was You' has similar sentiments as the Beatles 'Till There WasYou', but this is a soaring love song that I could have envisioned the late Frank Sinatra covering it, but for the self deprecating lines "before there was you, I'd suffer parties and barbecues/I blew every chance like I usually do" that are pure Jeays chanson. 'Camille Claudel' is a lovely song that takes us back to France with a lyric addressed to the sculptor Claudel, who died in obscurity being eclipsed when becoming Rodin's lover, model and muse. "Camille Claudel, your heart was your own before you fell in love, now it's turned to stone" indeed. On 'Old Man Vlad' Jeays is joined by the Indelicates, (who I first saw supporting Philip on a hexagonal stage in a Brighton arts hotel in the early 2000's). On this song the finger and a mocking tongues are wagged at Putin. It occurred to me by the time I heard 'I Love You' that on this album we find a more reflective, thoughtful and perhaps less cynical or comedic album than in years gone by. The slow piano lets Jeays thoughts of the destructive yet unrepentant power of love come to the surface before the drums of Harwood Dibley and electric guitar of Alice Rahmen rocks it out to it's conclusion. 'There Will Be Jazz' is a jazz-pop remaking of an old Jeays composition from 'The Bunjies Test' demos, that is a declaration to living the life, brimful or art and music but without notions of King or God, thoughts routinely expressed by the singer down the years. The album ends with a slow, sad, piano ballad entitled 'Nothing'. I'm loathe to spoil the sting in tale of this song, something else Philip Jeays has mastered, so I'll leave it there. All in all, it's an album that we Philip Jeays enthusiasts have come to expect,albeit a little softer round the edges somehow, but still containing some new classics. I envy anyone just getting into the music of Jeays, as they have such a treasure chest of songs to sift through.

Track Listing:-

1 In Love Again Marie
2 Victoria
3 The Rain
4 There Was Blood On The Jewels You Stole
5 Before There Was You
6 Camille Claudel
7 Old Man Vlad
8 I Love You
9 There Will Be Jazz
10 Nothing