Back in 2019 we wrote about London punx Fresh with the release of their album Withdraw on Specialist Subject Records. Single ‘Willa‘ captured the Fresh style perfectly, drawing on the fatalistic work of Willa Cather to bring to life the band’s aesthetic. A song which “embrace[d] the good and the bad of life,” as we put it, representing a balance between earnest vulnerability and ferocious feminist conviction.
Fresh are back with brand new single on Specialist Subject, though this time the inspiration comes from a far more contemporary source. Because ‘Morgan & Joanne’ is based on a viral story of a blind date gone right. “I wrote ‘Morgan & Joanne’ because I was so struck by the charm of Morgan and Joanne and how they turned what had the potential to be a really typical first date into an adventure,” explains lead Kathryn Woods. “The song is about the magic of meeting someone who you really fancy for the first time and kind of escaping into a different realm with them.”
With a rattling rhythm and Woods’s impassioned delivery, the song’s intensity is very much familiar, though the tone and subject matter shows a different side to Fresh. One concentrated more fully on the positive side of things. But this sense of fun carries its own weight too, subverting traditional narratives to develop a truer picture of the queer experience. “I think popular media and historical narratives tend to make queer relationships tragic instead of focusing on all the joy and possibilities that they hold,” Woods continues, “so I wanted to put a song out there that’s sweet and funny and empowering to counter that a little bit.”
Things didn’t go quite as planned
Morgan & Joanne
If I believed that love existed
I think I’d see it in your faces