Halfway 2 nowhere

2024 is shaping-up quite nicely for Liverpool singer-songwriter Fiona Lennon. She has already played a sold-out, hometown, headline show at The Kazimier Stockroom, secured a place at the city’s emerging talent showcase festival Sound City, and will be supporting Rianne Downey at Gorilla, Manchester in April. On top of all of that March 22nd sees the releases of her new single – Please Don’t Say My Name.

Please Don’t Say My Name is Lennon’s follow-up single to November 2023’s Dreaming. Where the last song was a touching track examining the yearnings of an unrequited love, Lennon’s new song achingly explores the mixed emotions felt when a failed relationship comes to it’s inevitable end.

The song starts with a subdued drum beat accompanied by a gentle acoustic guitar, before embarking on a melodic, Americana journey via some hazy bottle-neck, slide-guitar effects from lead guitarist Jack Lennon, and some sparkling piano trills from keyboard player Jack McCabe. Even though Please Don’t Say My Name is about the fallout from a failed relationship the song possess an up-beat poppy feel driven along by the drums of Sean Burns and the bass of Elliot Chinnock.

The theme of the song is that for every end, there is new beginning, you just have to get there, exemplified when Lennon implores ‘I’ve been trying to change for the better, but you make it harder when you say my name’. The conflicting emotions of the song come across most vividly during it’s chorus where Lennon’s soaring, heartfelt, lead vocals peak and trough suggesting a myriad of thoughts of ‘what might have been’; while the measured backing vocals hint at a decision well made and hope for the future. By the time the song reaches its echoing, vocal, choral conclusion, the listener can be assured that everything will be resolved to the satisfaction of all concerned. Eventually.

Please Don’t Say My Name is released on all platforms on March 22nd, and if you want to catch Fiona Lennon and her band live then as well as the events mentioned earlier you have opportunities to see her at Bask, Stockport on March 27th, and at Birkenhead Live at Future Yard on August 10th.

Ian Dunphy