"It's funny how someone you've never met manages to stay with you." - Grant McLennan, from the song "Trapeze Boy"

Grant McLennan, one of the most admired singer-songwriters in Australian rock history, died this weekend of an apparent heart attack at the age of 48. His musical history spans more than 25 years, first with the influential Aussie indie group the Go-Betweens, then into a partnership with the Church's Steve Kilbey under the name Jack Frost, and into a string of marvelous solo albums. While he never achieved the chart success his richly melodic and heartfelt pop deserved, appreciation for his work runs far and wide. The Australian Performing Rights Association recently named his autobiographical song "Cattle And Cane" as one of the 10 greatest Australian songs of all time.

Of all time.

I never met this man, or even got the chance to see him perform live, but he meant a great deal to me, as I'm newly realizing with the sting of his passing. The news hit me surprisingly hard, as though it was someone I knew, and it's still weighing on my heart. It frustrates me and saddens me and makes reality seem wrong somehow.

But I think I did know him, in a sense, as did everyone who's enjoyed and been touched by his music over the years. McLennan had an uncanny knack for combining melodies that were pure gold and instantly likeable to lyrics that were often deceptively sharp and painfully honest. The result was often heartbreakingly beautiful.

I've spent many, many hours listening to his four solo albums, his two albums with Kilbey, and various parts of his Go-Betweens work. I've spent hours more learning and playing his songs on acoustic guitar. Singing heartfelt laments like "Stones For You" or "Hot Water", I felt that McLennan's heartache was my own, and mine his. Feeling the adrenaline thrill of listening to songs like "In Your Bright Ray" or "Surround Me" while driving with the windows down on a warm spring day, I felt a sense of unbridled potential that made me want to kiss someone at that moment, just to share that hopeful energy that almost made me want to cry. Listening to the stark, spare lines of "Cattle And Cane" is dark October skies, a lonely wind, and those moments where I feel that I'm alone in the world.

Yet somehow, with Grant, you never really feel that you're alone. He's alongside you for the pain and exultation, grin on his face and wink in his eye. It's there in his music, and I'll always have that.

Thanks, Grant. You are already missed.


The Music of Grant McLennan
In an effort to get this richly deserving musician in more ears, here are some links to his music.

iTunes offers only a small part of McLennan's work, but here are a sampling of his classic songs that they do have available for download:

With the Go-Betweens:

• Bye Bye Pride
• Streets of Your Town
• Bachelor Kisses
• The Ghost and the Black Hat
• Cattle & Cane
• The Wrong Road

Solo work:

• Easy Come, Easy Go
• Stones For You
• Haven't I Been a Fool?
• Surround Me
• Fingers
• Black Mule

And here are links to purchase or learn more about his work:

Solo albums:

• Watershed
• Fireboy
• Horsebreaker Star
• In Your Bright Ray

With Jack Frost:

• Jack Frost
• Snow Job

And of course, the Go-Betweens.

Labels: Music