Ted Leo has over the years settled a reputation as one of the most likeable indie rock artists, and rightfully so. Just listen to Bottled In Cork from last year’s The Brutalist Bricks and you’ll instantly understand why.

It opens with a punky burst, lots of words crammed into the frantic pace, Leo’s shouting about a resolution and the United Nations and peace and the 8th of May and tired men in suits.

But then it settles down and develops into a catchy as hell pop tune with a joyful melody and call-and-response vocals, the sort of thing we have grown to expect from Leo every once in a while but that still shocks you with its instant gratification upon first listen. The man is obviously some sort of songwriting genius, only minus all the pretension. The song is some sort of booze-fuelled travelogue where bars seems to be the most interesting thing we have to visit in Europe. Leo is utterly charming mainly because he writes about mundane things, such as getting a message from his sister who just got a kid so he has to get to Copenhagen to see how she did. See, it rhymed, he’s a genius.

When he wonders what he’s afraid of he answers himself, through the genius use of that call-and-response structure, that it’s all the psychic damage of all the years he’s made of. Well, even when the past has its inescapable negative influence on his state of mind he still manages to maintain the family relations (and he even made it up to my Sweden, yay!) and reconnect with the locals who remembered their last meeting and bore him no grudge. I guess Leo is just that typical golden-hearted, middle-aged punk who will never wear a suit, drinks to cleanse out the past just so he can live in the present, constantly confuses the bartenders of Europe with licensed psychotherapists and is so easy to love.

While Leo exclaims ”Tell the bartender / I think I’m falling in love!” over and over till the song ends I think of a sentence in the song that sums it up pretty nicely: ”A little good will goes a might long way.”

Listen to Bottled In Cork on Spotify!

And watch the real funny music video that will probably make you fall deeper in love with this band. It has no connections whatsoever with the lyrics, so I’d say it’s for the best if you’d try shutting the meaning of the lyrics out of your mind while watching. It’s all part of Ted Leo’s philosophy anyway, so whatever.