Part 2 of Tony Cummings' song-by-song analysis of GODFREY RUST's 'Entangled' album

Producer Adam Rust has created a haunting jazz ballad sound for the second song on 'Entangled', "Leave It To Me", sub-headed "Voices Of The Ruthless". With Adam's elegant piano and David Fitzgerald's fluid sax and flute behind Godfrey's somnolent vocal you could almost imagine it being performed at Ronnie Scott's or some other night spot. Almost. Even with a wild leap of the imagination one can't picture a suave nightclub audience being able to engage with a lyric about our bleak world where Trump, Putin and Xi cast their shadows. These world leaders are mentioned in the sleevenotes alongside "the tech bros and oligarchs who profit with them and loot the world."

The song begins with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and gives Adam a rebellious and eminently confident voice:
"I will name all the animals as you commanded
And you can be sure they'll all be well husbanded
If they're cute or they're useful I'll domesticate them
If they're fierce or exciting I'll be sure to eliminate them."

Mankind's archetype quickly moves through history:
"I'll get my hands on all the levers of power
The Tree of Knowledge and the Babel Tower
I'll harness the wind, I will capture the sun
I'll answer all Job's questions but the final one (I'll take that!)
Leave it to me, leave it to me
Leave the weaving and thieving and all the achieving to me
Leave it to me."

The song then moves on to the bloodthirsty kings of the middle ages:
"This uncivil partnership is a beautiful thing
You can be priest and I will be king.
We'll teach the others how they should be
Just enough to be useful, not enough to be free.
We'll build with their strength, we'll fight with their bravery
We'll take them to the circus and we'll sell them into slavery
We'll promise the earth and deliver them dirt
And kill them with kindness 'cos love's gotta hurt
Ah grieve them with me, yeah grieve them with me
Load the natives and blacks with diseases and tax and bereave them with me
Yeah, grieve them with me."

And on to today's blighted world ruled by megalomaniacs and multi-national heads:
"Now I don't trust me and I don't trust you
I just trust you trust the same things that I do
The myths of money and incorporation
Things made from nothing but our collective imagination
Like the gods that we conjure for our fear or our favour
The pride of a nation under a self-proclaimed saviour
Believe it with me ah believe it with me
Anything is achievable if you conceive it with me
Yeah believe it with me."

Other parts of the song covering the "myth" (Godfrey's word) of the garden of Eden work less well, and I don't think it's a good idea to put attitudes and words into Adam's mouth. But this powerful song is still a compelling musical depiction of the consequences of the Fall. Vital, if very uncomfortable, listening.