Review:'KING, MICHAEL WESTON' 'Nothing Can Hurt Me Anymore'
- Label: 'Continental Song City'
- Genre: 'Folk'
- Release Date: '4th April 2026'
Our Rating:
On 29th July 2024, in a suburb of the faded seaside town of Southport, Merseyside, a seventeen-year-old man armed with a kitchen knife carried out a barbaric attack on a Taylor Swift-themed yoga and dance class attended by 26 children. Three were killed and ten others were injured.
After the ‘popular’ press had milked this shocking story for all it was worth and the political opportunists and predatory paparazzi had moved on to exploit the next drama, those directly or indirectly involved in this tragedy were left to deal with their anger and grief alone.
One of the victims was Bebe King, the six-year-old granddaughter of Michael Weston King (MWK), who, with his wife, Lou Dalgleish, make up the consistently excellent ‘My Darling Clementine.
This country-folk-soul duo had been planning a new album but this was put on hold as they each decided to channel their responses to their loss into separate projects; Dalgleish is to issue her own album later in the year. MWK’s album is released on Bebe’s birthday.
Recorded in rural Wales and Sheffield, ‘Nothing Can Hurt Me Anymore’ contains songs written as an act of cathartic alongside older songs that fit in with the sombre and reflective mood.
For instance, A Mother’s Pride was written soon after the death of his mother in 2006, a power pop tune in the style of Squeeze, a band his mum loved. On Into The West, his son Oliver reads an adapted version of a R.S. Thomas poem
Other ‘neutral’ songs are A Field of Our Own about relocating from the city to the countryside, Grow Old With Me,a love song to his wife and When I Grow Old, a bittersweet reflection on ageing.
Despite the inclusion of this material, the record is, inevitably dominated by the July events. MWK says: “To be honest, it was almost impossible to write about anything else. I think it will affect my writing for ever, just as indeed, the loss of Bebe will.”
The Springsteen-esque opening song, The Golden Hour references how the brutal murders were exploited by the far-right (”We took our sorrow home, some took it to
the street”). The atmospheric mix of guitar and strings in Die of Shame soundtrack contempt for the sensationalised media coverage.
La Bamba In The Rain reflects on the flag waving across the UK, finding little room for hope in this ominous trend. In an interview for the Blog ‘Say It With Garage Flowers’, MWK said: “The towns may have seen better days, but they are affluent and full of retired people with money – immigration is not going to be affecting them, so it’s bollocks that they should be wanting to wave a flag and protest about it.”
It should be said, however, that the songs reflect the singer’s sadness more than being a means to express rage. There is a determination to remember the spirit of their granddaughter in as positive a way as possible. The final song, Sally Sparkles, is a touching acoustic tribute inspired by the ‘stage name’ Bebe used when she performed on the swing in her back garden.
The musicians on the record include Dean Beresford (drums), Matt Holland (trumpet) , Shez Sheridan (guitar), Clovis Phillips (bass, keys and guitars) on, Clive Mellor (harmonica) and American friend and neighbour Jeb Loy Nichols on backing vocals. Erin Moran, aka ‘A Girl Called Eddy’, can be heard in a duet on the song Just A Girl In The Summertime.
The overall impression is that what happened makes other personal concerns seem irrelevant. The memories remain. As MWK put it in the funereal title track “She has gone but we still hear her sing”.
Still, while there is the sense that though, on the one hand, nothing else seems to matter anymore, there is also the feeling that, paradoxically, everything does.
