For Frank Turner, lyrics have always been more than just words on a page.
From the back of pubs to sold out palaces, arenas on the other side of the world to libraries in Croydon, his brand of punk-rock storytelling has always been front and centre, ready to be sang along to and connected with. Using music as a means of understanding his own journey, as well as the friends and associates he has met along the way, he is now at a point where he is fast approaching two decades out on his own.
And to celebrate such a feat, he has just released ‘The Next Ten Years’, his third collection of b-sides, covers, rarities and homeless songs spanning from 2015 to today. It’s raw, rallying and revealing, a deepdive into the treasure of his artistry that adds even more depth and detail to his recent mindsets and adventures.
To accompany the release, Rock Sound caught up with Frank whilst out in Europe supporting the legendary Dropkick Murphys to dissect some of his most famous and thoughtful lines from across the years.
“But if you’re all about the destination, then take a fucking flight // We’re going nowhere slowly, but we’re seeing all the sights // And we’re definitely going to hell // But we’ll have all the best stories to tell” ‘The Ballad Of Me And My Friends’ ‘Campfire Punkrock’ (2006)
“The whole thing with not playing this song for a while was a bad decision on my part. We played Wembley in 2012, my first arena headline, and I somehow got into my head that a song about play dive bars made less sense in that context. So that’s why I felt like my first headline show at an arena would be a nice last place to play, which in retrospect is quite an up my own arse thing to have thought!
“To me, a good lyric is a subtle lyric, and by that I mean a lyric that can bear different interpretations, not just for my audience, but for myself as well. What that song means to me now is very different to what it meant when I wrote it. The first time I played it was at a festival in Toulouse, where there were about four people in the audience. Then, it was an anthem about not giving a fuck because I’m going to do this anyway. Now it has a different feeling when you do it in front of multiple thousands of people. Yet it doesn’t mean that the second meaning is in any way invalid. But there is some rather glorious about standing on stage and singing, ‘None of this is going anywhere’. And the broad sentiment of the conclusion stands up on its own regardless of where you sing it. Regardless of where it is being shown, it remains a guiding principle for me.”
“Yeah, well, life is about love, last minutes and lost evenings // About fire in our bellies and furtive little feelings //And the aching amplitudes that set our needles all a-flickering // And help us with remembering that the only thing that’s left to do is live” ‘I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous’ ‘Love Ire And Song’ (2008)
“There’s a very ironic backstory to that lyric. There was a person who I was interested in romantically who wasn’t particularly interested in me, and I texted to them to invite them out saying, ‘Come on, get on the train. Life’s about love, last minutes and lost evenings’. Then that fizzled out within days, but I had the text. I thought that wasn’t terrible and said something a little bit more profound than I intended.
“And now it has grown into something very different. It’s something I’m extremely proud of. Tarrant [Anderson Bassist] takes credit for suggesting it as the title of the festival weekend, too. Like, it’s just perfect.”
“So I tried to think what Lex would want me to do // At times like this when I was feeling blue // So I gathered up some friends to spread the sad, sad news // And we headed to the City for a drink or two // And we sang” ‘Long Live The Queen’ ‘Love Ire And Song’ (2008)
“There was a huge moment for me as a writer when I encountered my friend Jay, also known as Beans On Toast. I was in Million Dead, and we would deliberately write obscure songs about Polish reform communism. I’m proud of a lot of the lyrics I wrote with that band, but there is a lot of not very well-earned intellectual flex going on. However, I would spend months poring over those lyrics, contemplating symbolism and all the other elements. Then I would start hanging out at Nambucca, and Jay was there during what were the early days of Beans On Toast for him. We had a weekend where we all took acid and everything was insane, and a friend of ours got convinced that the Chinese army was hiding all around the room. About five days later, Jay then had a song called ‘Steve and the Secret Chinese Army’. That was great, but it also made me think, ‘Are you allowed to do that?’ Can you just write about a thing that happened? And in that case, it was just about something that was funny; it didn’t have an overarching point to it, it was just a story. I was also starting to listen to a lot more storytelling artists, and within that, Springsteen’s “fiction” songs, as I call them.
“From there, that’s when I set out to very consciously write a story song about what had happened to me. It was a really big breakthrough moment for me and allowed me then expand my list of topics. ‘Love Live The Queen’, I had got more into my stride by then, but it was also a much more profound moment in my life than getting fucked up at the weekend. It was about a dear friend who had passed away. I felt moved to write a song about her passing, so how do you go about that? Do you write about how you’re feeling? I thought I would write the story of the last time that we saw each other and then extend it into the fantasy area, because she really was laid in bed and said, ‘I just want to get out of here’. I think that was a secondary moment for me, too, because you can tell the story, but then the emotional heft and symbolism emerge as a property. Show, don’t tell, as they say.
“The ultimate knack of songwriting is when you are able to zoom in and out. You write a song that is personal but not so personal that it is exclusionary. There is a way to write personally that’s just like reading out of your diary, and it can be hard for other people to engage with it as a result. For the listener, it becomes voyeurism as a result. But to find the way to tell that very personal story that leaves enough ambiguity, enough daylight, for listeners to hear something in the song that makes it personal to them as well. That’s the ultimate jackpot.”
“Until parts of me are part of every land mass, every sea // In the rain, upon your crops and in the very air you breathe” ‘One Foot Before The Other’ ‘England, Keep My Bones’ (2012)
“There’s a fair amount of Carl Sagan in the lyrics to that song. The idea that we are all stardust. Hopefully, the conclusion of that song has a bit of humility to it as well. I think there is a comfort in continuous matter. Still, I believe very strongly that a lot of pontification about the afterlife and reincarnation is sort of narcissism, to a degree. Like, how could this world exist without me and my viewpoint? The world doesn’t give a shit about your viewpoint, and there’s no reason that it should. I think that it’s a useful thing to remember that the world doesn’t care that you exist. That idea that we all dissolve into something that is greater than just ourselves is where I find comfort. We remain, and we are remembered in some way.”
“But you stood apart in my calloused heart // And you taught me and here’s what I learned // That love is about all the changes you make // And not just three small words” ‘The Way I Tend To Be’ ‘Tape Deck Heart’ (2013)
“A big part of my growing up was realising that actions are more important than rhetoric. This song is a funny one that I know many people have had at their wedding, which is slightly weird for me because it’s a totally defeated song. It’s me saying that everything has gone wrong, and I’ve fucked it up and I’ve started to figure out why. It’s a break-up song. The result of a drunk phone call that I had whilst laying over in Hong Kong airport where I called my ex and made a total arsehole out of myself. Afterwards, I felt very remorseful about the phone call, as well as the whole situation and how I had handled it.
“When I wrote those words down, yes, it’s a moment of realisation. It’s a powerful one for me, too, in my own life. But it wasn’t just, ‘I figured it out and everything is going to be great,’ but more of a, ‘I should have done that.’
“Again, it goes back to the idea that interpretation is king. Occasionally, people will ask me what a song means, and I’ll just say that it means whatever the fuck you want it to mean. The most interesting thing to me is when people find their own meaning in what I say. I would find it quite dull to police any of that. It would be dull.”
“They threw me a whirlwind // And I spat back the sea // I took a battering but I’ve got thicker skin and the best people I know looking out for me” ‘Get Better’ ‘Positive Songs For Negative People’ (2015)
“This is a song that, to me, is about drugs. But I know that it has become a big thing for people with chronic illnesses. I receive numerous messages about it from people all the time. That’s very different from what I intended. It’s about my own behaviour and morality. But if it is meaningful and important and inspirational for people in a situation like cancer, something that I haven’t experienced myself, I think that’s incredible. What a wonderful thing.
“However, those particular words have been made possible by the fortunate people around me. It’s really important to acknowledge that and know that no person is an island. When I was at my lowest, the guys in my band and crew stood by me and supported me. Cocaine is a selfish drug, but I was not so selfish to see that there were people around me who gave a fuck. That’s not a small thing, and it’s something that I remain grateful for to this day.”
“Half my fucking life blinking in the darkness // Stuck on the outside, sick and mostly harmless // A stranger to myself, but still chasing their forgiveness // For anything I did when I was somewhere inbetween” ‘Somewhere Inbetween’ ‘Undefeated’ (2024)
“I don’t often write poems and turn them into songs. It’s a collaborative process between music and words. But this song was more than most a poem before it was the song. I wouldn’t call it automatic writing, but rather a case of letting go and allowing one line to flow into the next. Any creative person will tell you that the great moment is when the scissors start gliding and you start feeling yourself going smoother and faster. I remember struggling over the first two lines, and then just going for it from there.
“I was rather unsure about it at first. There’s a fair bit of repetition and circularity within the words, and I couldn’t decide it that was good or bad. There’s a deliberate sluggish and ham-fisted naivety in there as well; it’s not that subtle. So I played it for my friend Rich, asking if he thought it was alright, and he was like, ‘Jesus fucking Christ, dude.’ Oh, cool, that was the reaction I was looking for.
“In terms of my career, there’s always been a feeling that I have never really slotted into the one category or the other. In one way, that’s something I have been proud of. I’ve always looked up to people like Leonard Cohen, who was nearly part of Greenwich Village and nearly part of Andy Warhol and The Factory. Always on the edge of the photographs, which I thought was cool. At the beginning of my career, there was a time when I played shows in quick succession with Mumford & Sons, Gallows and Babyshambles. And for me, the point of punk-rock was that it was a place you could belong if you were an outcast. Like everything, it has proved to be imperfect over the years, as shown in the story of me getting my arse kicked at a hardcore show when I was 17. That was a really disillusioning moment for me. But in what I have built as a fan community, a friend of mine said to me at the second Lost Evenings, ‘I can see what you’re trying to do, you’re trying to build what you thought the hardcore scene was before it let you down’. Guilty.”
“There are three hundred and twenty giraffes // On the British mainland // Shared around between eighty-five zoos // And a few stuck in private collections” ‘Giraffes #1’ ‘The Next Ten Years’ (2025)
“This may be a bit of a cheat, but there are a fair few covers on ‘The Next Ten Years’. In terms of glorifying lyrics, I’m much more comfortable glorifying other people’s lyrics than my own. Chris T-T has always been a huge deal for me. When I started, my greatest ambition was to be anything close to what Chris T-T is. I thought that then, and I think that now. He is such a wonderful writer. Everything that we have discussed here, about story songs and finding meaning in that, I fucking love that he wrote a song about giraffes. Like what an absolute slam dunk of an opening line this is, but then the way he takes it somewhere else completely. ‘Stick your neck out, stand up tall, don’t look down now.’ Those are the three rules that giraffes still live by. Turning the story of the number of giraffes in England into a song about resilience and self-respect, that is some fucking class A genius songwriting.”
Frank Turner’s latest album ‘The Next Ten Years’ is out now.
