SINGLE REVIEW: SAVANNAH GARDNER - BORN IN THE WRONG GENERATION

It was only listening to the opening few bars of the new single from Savannah Gardner, "Born In The Wrong Generation", that #TEAMw21 realised that although we've seen it played many times we've probably never properly heard it. In a typical full Savannah set it can be about an hour in before it appears, by then the cider has probably kicked in, there have been a number of singalongs and your emotions have been taken on a wild journey. The crowd are normally pretty boisterous, everyone is joining in on the chorus at volume, but whatever else Savannah was singing about has frankly remained a mystery - until now.

Savannah like all of us has wondered what it would've been like to have been around at a different time. Woodstock or the birth of rock 'n' roll at the Sun Studios and has naturally created a little gem of a single out of it.

It takes a few plays to adjust to the crisp Jack Trouble production, adjusting to the lack of someone shouting in your ear but once you do, there is much to uncover. If Savannah's debut album taught us one thing, then it is that her lyrics her crafted and leave plenty to unpack and this is no exception.

There's a joyful exuberance, that comes with singing out loud without a care in the world and it is etched into every line here.

"Driving down the highway in my Volkswagen bug

I'm pretending it’s the 60s, it’s the summer of love

Found my daddy’s old cassette tape of "Blonde On Blonde"

And I’m singing every word at the top of my lungs"

Savannah then drops into a sultry delivery for the lead into the chorus

"Baby I’m just longing for some anarchy

I’m begging to be seen by somebody

Cause I was born in the wrong

I was born in the wrong

I was born in the wrong generation"

The chorus is the ultimate singalong, even if you have never heard it before by the time it ends you'll be singing it loud and proud like you've known it your whole life.

For the second verse, Savannah's "I" has become a "We", and we've changed settings.

"Laughing at each other cross the bonfire pit

Drinking cheap liquor and passing round a spliff

With our flared jeans and fringe jackets blowing in the wind

Oh we promise not to grow up to never fit in"

The third verse is where the real magic happens, the opening two lines slow things right down, and Savannah takes on a slow soulful timbre, and where for all her daydreaming she can see wonder in the present day. There seems like an eternity between Savannah saying "Born" and then completing the line. It is the cue to kick of the rest of the verse and we are back in dreamland, able to place ourselves in whatever time period we want.

"But when I see you standing there I can’t help but stop and stare

And I think that maybe I was born to be right here

But ain’t it fun to dare and dream, romanticise what could have been

We’re the outcasts and the hopefuls and the hippies with the old souls who were"

Joyful from start to finish - play loud and often.