Grace Petrie’s music arrived in my life around 2023, somewhere between Dead Man Singing being accepted for publication and its actual release into the world in September of that year. Petrie has since become one of my favourite songwriters, equally capable of turning her astute wordplay to the political and the personal. Connectivity (2021) was the most recent album at the time, although since then she’s released the also excellent Build Something Better (2024).

Opening track Storm to Weather lays out her modern folk music credentials, with fiddle to the fore in a cheery song about clinging to hope in the midst of despair. It’s followed by We've Got an Office in Hackney, which contrasts the vacuous marketing talk of the music business with the sensibilities of making music as an art form. If that sounds pretentious, it really isn’t. It’s a fabulous song about both the costs and the joys of putting your work out there. I’m not a musician, but as a writer I can relate to the sensibility behind lines like ‘If there’s a single person out there to whom this song something means, I’d take one lonely broken heart over a hundred million streams.’

Another song that quickly struck me on my first listen to the album was No Woman Ever Wants To Be a Muse, which I heard as something of a challenge. Having just written a book about a songwriter, I felt that I ought to turn the tables and write something about what it’s like to have a song written about you. That inspiration led me to write Imogen Imagine, and I’m delighted to report that Grace Petrie herself has given me permission to quote her lyrics at the beginning of soon to be published book. It isn’t the only Grace Petrie song to have shaped Imogen Imagine: the one that follows it on the album, The Last Man on Earth, also played a part in my shaping of the characters as I sought to honour the source of my initial inspiration.

Technicolour is a curious song. Apparently it’s one of the least streamed and least popular of Petrie’s catalogue, yet it’s among my very favourite songs of hers: a beautifully written account of the emotional fallout of bumping into a former romantic partner. It has a narrative thread that provides context for a thoughtful, articulate and emotionally sophisticated treatment of the agonies of starting over. Sometimes endings come in increments, indeed.

As an album, Connectivity covers the life of a performer (besides the songs already mentioned, there’s Great Central Way and the unaccompanied solo vocal of Galway), relationships (Romance Addict), singleness (the clever lyrical conceit at the heart of IKEA) and keeping going with your politics and principles in the face of a world that seems intent on going in the opposite direction (Some Days Are Worse Than Others, The Losing Side).

Grace Petrie has been described as a Millennial  Billy Bragg, and I suspect that both artists would be happy with the comparison. Like the Bard of Barking, Grace is a first-rate wordsmith, equally at home with the personal and the political. She digs deep into her principles and shares them in a way that inspires hope and empathy in equal amounts.  If you get the chance to see her live, you’ll also see that as well as a fine songwriter, she’s a charismatic and powerful performer. Her entire back catalogue is worth checking out, but if she’s a new voice to you, Connectivity is a fine place to start.