The Worst Song in the World: Ten Fé on the most insidious example of an actor turning rockstar
Walthamstow’s finest indie rock quartet, Ten Fé, are lovely fellows. It shows in their sound. Their latest album, Still In Love, oozes a textured complexity that is at once muscular and soft. They are sonic salted caramel, sweet but earthy. However, unlike the booming confectionary flavour, with three albums now tied to their name, they’re not just the hot flavour of the month.
Over the course of their growing tenure, which started way back in 2013 with their first single ‘Time’ and extends to the recent crackers like the grooving ‘All Night’, they’ve often used their platform to kindly shine a light on the music, venues, and artists that they love. But the ire of a fellow who spurns wrath until it is truly needed rages with all the more fury.
So, when we asked the group to celebrate the release of the stellar Still In Love by finally allowing themselves to look love’s opposite in the eye and call out the absolute bastard of music, they teetered upon taking it too far. This is their comical take on the worst song in the whole bloody world.
This is Ten Fé’s brutal postmortem of Damien Lewis’ live rendition of ‘God Save the King’. NB dear Lewis’ PR team, these are Ten Fé’s words, not ours…
The worst song in the world, according to Ten Fé:
“Though this is undoubtedly a pretty mean assignment, we undertook it with surprising relish. A large chunk of our conversation in the tour bus this last week has been dedicated to compiling a playlist of our least favourite songs. The usual suspects feature, of course—Sheeran, Mars, Black Eyed Peas… but there was one clear winner!
Few things stink worse than watching someone you once admired soil themselves publicly, and on this occasion – as we are all fans of Damien Lewis as Major Richard Winters here at Ten Fé Heights – the stench is unbearable.
There’s so much that’s terrible about this, we hardly know where to start…
Is it poor, misguided Damien himself – singing in a monotone sub-American croon – aviators and tight jeans, pushing patriotic rope so hard it gets wrapped around his neck? Is it the ‘jazzy’ Saxophone player, clearly depp-ed in from his Sunday afternoon gig at Silverstone Harvester? Though, we like how he uses his pit-lanyard as an instrument strap.
Is the worst part of this the audience—the waxwork array of billionaire carbon-guzzling F1 drivers? Or the overfed lobster bank of Brexit manhood, baking in the sun and curdling in boredom, blandness and bemusement? Argh, and the whole misplaced Americanisation of it all!
Ultimately, though, of course, what takes the biscuit is the music. The very shit music. An uninspiring, plodding melody bellowed in fog horn monotone by a celebrity who has no musical talent about a man, who we wish God to preserve, though we have no idea why… it’s like being trapped inside Jeremy Clarkson’s Spotify algorithm.
There is an alternative universe, a happier place where, at the climax of their flyover, the Red Arrows drop their load on the whole sorry scene, and we are left with blissful, smouldering silence.”
As you can tell, they’re purveyors of a more authentic, less conceited, and corny to a controversial nth form of music. And they put their music where their mouth is on Still In Love. Although, to be fair, I fear Damien Lewis might be doing the same—and that might just be the worst thing about it, the sickly sense of perverse passion.
