Single Review: Last Orders Mersey Square (Barb Jungr)

Barb Jungr is such an inspired singer of the songs of others - bringing fresh energy and new perspectives to material both well and lesser-known - that her own accomplishments as a lyricist are sometimes under-celebrated. In fact, from her earliest Three Courgettes and Jungr and Parker days to her recent successful forays into musical theatre, Jungr has always written - usually in collaboration with other musicians or arrangers. Original compositions have appeared on many of her solo albums, including 2016's Shelter From the Storm, on which self-penned songs sat snugly alongside writing by Dylan, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Springsteen and Bowie. 

Reviewing that record at the time I wondered when Jungr might put "Last Orders Mersey Square" on an album. It's a song I first heard her perform during a gig at Crazy Coqs the previous year. Written with Simon Wallace for the 2012 Stockport to Memphis collection but ultimately not included on the album, the song went straight to the heart in live performance, but no official recorded version has ever been available.

Until now, that is  - it's released as a single this week on 31st October. Following  her second album combining Dylan and Cohen material, Hallelujah on Desolation Row, and her striking version of Jimmy Webb's great "MacArthur Park," this is Jungr's third release this year, and it's a beauty. Recorded at Wallace's studio, with him producing and playing all instruments, the track retains all of the emotion of my memory of the live performance. 

Memory is key to the song itself, in fact. Jungr describes the track as "a love letter to the Stockport I love, the Stockport of old mill towers, canals and famous rivers, of red brick terraces and looming moors." With elegant economy, Jungr's lyrics sketch memories of a youthful love affair in a northern town where "[y]ou could smell the hops across the valley when they brewed the beer" and where "in the pubs we smoked and kissed/We drank our youth like the morning mist." 

There's wry humour in the reminiscence - "For the long and lazy summer we were lovers with no plan/ In the end it rained the rain of ages on our caravan" - but mostly a deep affection and romance, the nostalgic imagery accentuated by the embracing warmth of Jungr's vocal and the tenderness of Wallace's piano-playing which sparkles and shimmers into a gorgeous chorus, where Jungr recalls the ringing of the 'closing time' bell mingling with the "strains of 'Layla' from the jukebox in the smoky air." 

The track conveys a poignant sense of time passing - of the sun setting, of Summer giving way to Autumn - and of youthful experience as fleeting but intense and savoured, the memory of a place indelibly interwoven with the memory of a person. What a treat to finally be able to return again and again to this wonderful song, one of Jungr's very best. 

"Last Orders Mersey Square" is available from 31 October. Link to pre-save here.