The annual missive from Essex troubadour Beans On Toast – songs of impending war and an AI revolution, tempered by lots of observations on the delights of home, family and parenthood
Release Date: 1st December 2023
Label: BOT Music
Formats: Digital
It’s December, folks, and, as the final month of the year dawns, it’s time for another missive from Beans On Toast, one of our favourite singers, songwriters, social commentators and satirists.
If you’ve bothered to read this far, then you’re probably already aware that Beans On Toast – aka prolific Essex Troubadour Jay McAllister – always releases an album on his birthday – 1st December – and 2023 is no exception to that tradition. This year’s effort – his 16th album by my reckoning – is called The Toothpaste And The Tube and, as usual, it’s a doozie. And, if you’re wondering about the album’s name, it’s a reference to the adage (and a line in Beans’s song, Work To Do) – “You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube,” meaning that once something is said or done, it can’t be unsaid or undone – it is what it is.
At The Barrier last came across Beans On Toast on a warm, sunny, summer’s afternoon in Oxfordshire, when he wowed the Saturday crowd at this year’s Fairport’s Cropredy Convention; clad in delightfully casual attire and sans chaussures, he charmed us all with a 20+ song set that covered subjects as diverse as the glory of the British pub, the beauty of nature and the joys of family life, as well copious deserved swipes and digs at the incompetence of those who govern us. Well – I say “he charmed us all,” but I do recall that there was one individual, evidently a Daily Express reader, who used Fairport’s Facebook page to take exception to Beans’s “lefty” politics (and, yes, he does target government incompetence, but not because he’s taking political sides – it’s because our current government IS incompetent) and his use of “bad language” (which I didn’t notice…well – not much anyway). Still, you can’t please everybody, and 19,999 happy punters out of an audience of 20,000 is a pretty good strike rate, I’d say.
But – on to The Toothpaste And The Tube. It’s another collection of songs that covers a lot of ground and addresses a wide variety of subjects, both weighty and heartwarming. There’s songs here that consider the fragile state of our planet and our existence – our failure to come to terms with environmental deterioration and the climate crisis, our determination to engage in war and conflict, the loss of a loved one and the impending AI revolution all come under the microscope – and yet those heavy topics are balanced by songs celebrating family life, the legacy of a good boozer and the joys of taking a bracing swim in the sea. Beans On Toast wrote all 13 songs on The Toothpaste And The Tube and he’s been helped by a few mates – blues duo Ferris and Sylvester, drummer/ organist Ross Gordon and Beans’ five-year-old daughter amongst them – to realise his vision for the songs. The Toothpaste and the Tube might just be the best Beans on Toast collection yet.
If you’ve ever seen Beans On Toast perform, you’ll appreciate the sheer joie-de-vivre that he brings to his live show, and it’s that spirit of joy that is celebrated in Back Out on the Road, the album’s opening track. Beans’s lyrics, with mentions of beach parties in Brighton and Weston-Super-Mare, lock-ins, and walks around Bolton Town Centre and Nottingham Arboretum, capture perfectly a scenario that will be familiar to anyone who has ever performed in a small venue in a town they’ve never before visited. It’s thoroughly joyful and freedom-confirming.
You get the idea of where Beans is headed with second track, Work To Do as he sings his opening lines: “Our rivers are a toxic mix of chemicals and sewage. The general public foot the bill, whilst the water companies profit.” Yet, it’s not just environmental negligence that bears the brunt of Beans’s cynicism, as lines like “In the midst of our extinction, we’re still building weapons” demonstrate. But don’t expect doom, gloom and over-seriousness; in true Beans on Toast fashion, the song’s biting commentary is wrapped in a jolly country-flavoured dressing, with some glorious harmony vocals thrown in to boot.
The cost of living and the challenges of building a stable family life form the subject matter for the bluesy Hope & Glory. It’s a bittersweet song – an articulate expression of real issues that affect thousands of people, yet, still, the song’s lead character is able to recognize the beauty of the natural things around her. And it’s the state of life that has to be endured by the majority that also sets the scene for The Three Stooges, another song with a jolly tune that sweetens the bitterness in the song’s lyrics. The masses put up with a deteriorating environment and a worsening quality of life whilst the stooges – our king, our present head of government the most comedic of his incompetent predecessors – all dance to the tunes of the oil companies and oligarchs.
But, as I’ve already said, there’s a lot more to Beans On Toast that just wry observations on government incompetence and the declining quality of British life. Home and family are hugely important to him and The Dragicorn, a heartwarming celebration of the pleasures of spending time with his five-year-old daughter, captures those sentiments beautifully. Beans uses the song to explain how we can all learn lessons from the earnest innocence of a young child and, as he says, “If you wanna hang out with a five-year-old, you better believe in mythical creatures!”
Billed as “…a paean to the magic and mythology to be unearthed in the institution that is the Great British Pub,” The Golden Lion is a gentle, folky number that invokes an almost irresistible urge to up sticks right away and visit the Todmorden establishment of the song’s title. Beans heaps praise on the pub’s layout, its customers, the quality of the food on offer (“The best Thai food this side of Thailand”), the quality of the pub’s sound system and, most of all, the pub’s landlady. As he says, “The characters in The Golden Lion [lyrics] are real people, as is the bizarre history of the town that the song alludes to. I played a show at the pub last year and I was so inspired by the town, the pub and its people that I couldn’t help but write a folk song about it. As with the town, the song is quintessentially English, mysterious and boozy.”
The powerful Send Me A Bird is a touching contemplation of a lost loved one. Packed with meaningful metaphors, it was a true highlight of Beans’ Cropredy set, and it’s a highlight of The Toothpaste And The Tube too. Then – bagpipes make their debut appearance on a Beans On Toast track – as Beans reverts to his given name of McAllister to revel in his Scottish roots on the bright Sunny Sunny Scotland, before he switches his attention to Artificial Intelligence and the coming AI revolution. In contrast to the rest of the world who, seemingly, shake in terror at the very mention of this technology, Beans on Toast embraces the opportunities it offers, albeit in an offbeat, cautious, semi-humourous kind of way. In an upbeat rag, he acknowledges that “It’s terrifying and mystifying in equal measure – I can’t help feeling that the world has changed forever,” before suggesting that “…maybe it’s just hyperbole – another latest fad.” And I just love how he manages to get away with rhyming “languages” with “mathematics,” and how he is so self-effacing about the song’s “crap” chorus.
Beans describes The Greenwash as an “eco-protest jam,” and, I suppose, that’s as good a tag as any for this funky rap with a tuneful girly chorus. It’s particularly appropriate that during the week when COP28 is being held in one of the world’s major oil-producing nations, chaired by an Oil Company head who, according to some newspapers, is alleged to be a climate-change denier, that Beans On Toast should talk about an individual who “…takes his private jet to a climate conference sponsored by Coca-Cola.” He couldn’t have timed it better!
I find it particularly disheartening that, in his excellent, poignant, anti-war song, Against The War, Beans On Toast has felt unable to move on from expressing the concerns and fears that formed the subject matter of many protest songs of the late fifties and early sixties – such is progress. Actually, it’s an excellent, potent, folky song, and, if lines like: “I’ll stand with the victims whoever they are,” “I’m not sure if there’s a good guy and a bad guy anymore” and “The whole thing is f*cking horrible – yet someone is benefitting from it all” seem to be re-reading an old story, that’s because the world hasn’t moved on – and all credit is due to Beans On Toast for sticking with the agenda.
But, as we’ve seen several times already, Beans On Toast never stays angry for very long and, here, he chooses to take a dip in the sea to calm his ire and refresh his demeanour. In the opening lines to Swimming in the Sea, he paints an idyllic scene of a summer’s beach at dusk, an idyll that he promptly shatters by remarking that “Of course, it’s f*ckin’ freezin’ – that’s kind of the point!” Contemplative and folky, it’s a song that relishes the invigourating sensation of a sea dip, even if the immersion only lasts a matter of seconds. And to wrap up a splendid album, what better than another heartfelt ode to home and family? To a pared-back electric guitar accompaniment, Beans pays tribute to his home, his family, his town and his community; that’s who he is, and that’s all he really wants – if those incompetent, deceitful, self-serving people at the top will just allow him to enjoy it.
Watch the official video to The Golden Lion – the album’s lead single – here:
Beans On Toast online: Website / Facebook / X (formerly Twitter) / Instagram / YouTube / Bandcamp
Keep up with At The Barrier: Facebook / X (formerly Twitter) / Instagram / Spotify / YouTube