Gare - If Not For You

Hear The Track Here

Gary Teed (AKA Gare) wrote this track for his wife of 18 years, and as a 20 year veteran of the institution, I understand exactly why he felt moved to do this. They may talk your ears off at every opportunity, find millions of unpleasant and time consuming tasks for you to undertake, and berate you to do better at work, but what would we do without them? Of course, for the rest of us, such a frank admission of love could have us either reaching for the sickbag or running in the opposite direction without so much as listening to a note of music.

Damn those philistines!

I could have sworn I have reviewed this guy more than once, but apparently not. I reviewed Back Home (February 2006) and considering it was folk and one of the man's stated influence is John Denver, it wasn't that bad an experience. Matter of fact, it was a fine song, simply sung and there is nowt wrong with that. Since then, he has been experimenting with various types and music making, and I think he had a bit of a catharsis because he felt a bit lost. Welp, Gary me old mate, I now know exactly what you should be doing - churning out what you do best. As much as I don't like the genre, and some of the awesome mushiness of a lot of the lyrics, I can appreciate a decent peice of music and If Not For You is that.

It is very true that you would probably need to be pretty open-minded to listen to something that is folk in every way or - like me - know the genre more than intimately. I think that's the main reason why I like Gare being a guitarist/singer, and maybe why you will like him too. I'll also make no great shakes about the song either, which is very conventional and exactly what you would expect from the genre. However, it's the clarity of the arrangement and production and the tone and timbre of the man's vocals that finally do it for me. Not as deep as Johnny Cash, not as whiny as Dylan but somewhere right in between. Obviously this track isn't going to be for everybody, but I don't think that'll matter to Gare overmuch.

Very presentable folk rock.