The Young ’uns: Tiny Notes

Hudson Records
★★★★★

TWENTY years ago, three teenage friends stumbled across folk music in the back room of a pub in their native Stockton-on-Tees. Entranced by music they had not previously been familiar with they became regulars and were dubbed the Young ’uns due to being the youngest people in the room.

Since then, the trio of Sean Cooney, Michael Hughes and David Eagle (also an award-winning comedian) have become one of the hottest acts on the folk scene with a body of work which includes tributes to Spanish Civil War hero Johnny Longstaff and pivotal moments in working-class history from the Peasants Revolt to the Battle of Cable Street. 

This latest album marks a new departure, consisting of entirely new songs written by Cooney, but nevertheless continues the narrative tradition of celebrating real-life heroes caught up in tragic situations.  

The title track refers to messages of hope left by 22-year-old Paige Hunter on Sunderland’s Wearmouth Bridge where many people over the years have decided to end their lives. Her actions are estimated to have saved the lives of 30 people in the north-east and inspired similar initiatives on bridges all over the world.

The opening track, Jack Merritt’s Boots, remembers the 25-year-old killed in the terror attack at London’s Fishmonger’s Hall in 2019, who had devoted his young life to helping people in prison. 

The theme of lives cut tragically short is continued in Lyra, that is about Northern Ireland journalist Lyra McKee, and Three Dads Walking about three men whose daughters tragically took their own lives and who walked 300 miles in their memory to raise money for suicide prevention.

Tim Burman was written at the request of the sister of a victim of the Lockerbie bombing but with a view to it being a love song rather than a sad song. There is indeed hope to be found in tragic situations, such as that of Richard Moore, blinded as a child by an army bullet in Derry, who went on to found the charity Children in Crossfire. 

Trespassers returns to their theatre show about Johnny Longstaff celebrating his participation in acts of civil disobedience, demanding the right to roam, and the final track Iuventa pays tribute to a ship belonging to a youth rescue organisation in Berlin which saved drowning people in the Mediterranean.  

Estimated to have saved 14,000 lives in 2017, the ship was seized and incredibly the crew are awaiting trial for alleged collusion with people smugglers.

Burning with compassion, along with anger at injustice, this album is probably the trio’s most powerful yet and shows the Young ’uns are fast becoming the bards of our age.

On tour from Saturday April 8, dates: https://www.theyounguns.co.uk