Love Letter To A Record: Jack Grace On Carole King’s ‘Tapestry’

April 10, 2018

Many of us can link a certain album to pivotal moments in our lives. Whether it’s the first record you bought with your own money, the chord you first learnt to play on guitar, the song that soundtracked your first kiss, the album that got you those awkward and painful pubescent years or the one that set off light bulbs in your brain and inspired you to take a big leap of faith into the unknown – music is often the catalyst for change in our lives and can even help shape who we become.

In this series, Music Feeds asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share with us stories about the effect music has had on their lives.

Here are their love letters to records that forever changed their lives.

Jack Grace — Carole King’s Tapestry

You may recall things differently – when feelings run raw, memories runs wild. All I know is it was pure, and… pure luck that in the summer of 1999 my old man fished you out of a discount box at a servo outside of Buladelah. CD’s never last long in a commodore. You survived 3 summers, maybe… but to the point, songs don’t exist on a CD in a commodore. Dad ran that bus rich, roughly 2 parts 95ULP, 2 parts you. I sucked it in.

It’s not the expensive meals you remember. Yours was the first alto I’d had which came raw, bold, dry, un-edited, unbothered and unforgettable. You taught me “winter spring summer or fall, all you gotta do is call, and I’ll be there, you’ve got a friend,” cheers.

I’ve been around (I’m not proud of it), for a while there it was while we were together – you said it was natural, for the record I was relieved when that mp3 CD with Shania Twain’s Come On Over, You, Ricky Martin’s Ricky Martin and Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits finally died. Exhausting.

It was then I realised that, when I’m with you, I just want to be with you. My first year out of Year 10 working on a building site in Newcastle made me realise what we had was special. There were times where I had the opportunity to go public, I wasn’t ready, building sites in Newcastle are complicated – I thought I was protecting us, I saw my love for you as my weakness – that’s a regret and nothing to do with you.

“One more song about moving along a highway, can’t say much of anything that’s new” sums it up for me most days and when you say it, and I don’t have to, I’m OK. When you share your heart with true love, the world fades. That’s about as much truth as I know or need. You turn the noise down and it’s as much of a gift as anyone can give.

You have no space for sap – and (it’s been said before) that “If something is true, it is not sentimental”.

So I say in truth, I Love You.

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Jack Grace has just announced an East Coast tour in honour of his new EP, ‘If I Tremble’, due out this Friday, April 13th. Pre-order it here and catch his tour dates below.