Robert Forster - Strawberries

A new Robert Forster album, Strawberries, is to be released on 23rd May. More information here.

The eponymous lead track is available on YouTube. The song is said to be a red herring in the context of the album; one that deals almost exclusively in observational character studies or, as Forster puts it, “story songs”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRErr5qmRg4

The song is fine.

i think his last video was also in that kitchen, right?

Wait…does Robert know the pandemic is over?

Dude in late sixties prefers to chill at home shocker.

the kitchen is the room where most prefer to congregate at a gathering, it’s true

Not in my place -- no dirty floors allowed!

The video made me extremely happy - after everything they've been through, now in their golden years and looking truly happy together, we should all be so lucky.

the album is out and decent! musically and lyrically more interesting to me than the last few, new band and story songs seem to free him up.

"breakfast on the train" reminded me of parts of "danger in the past", happily

One of the few remaining acts where I buy everything they put out day 1.

lol I forgot though

been really enjoying this one, second half especially great. enough familiar pleasures throughout that the wilder lyrical volleys and cool digressions hit pretty hard.

His voice sounds aged for the first time -- chalky.

Robert is a total hero of mine, but this isn't really doing much for me. The first song is great and there's a couple of nice ones towards the end, sadly that's about it. It seemed like he was on such a roll when he was putting out The Evangelist, Songs To Play and Inferno which are up there with The Go Betweens. Songs like Strawberries and Diamonds are quite hard to listen to.

Saw his name the other day in the library, under a blurb on the back of Stuart Murdoch’s novel.

this is uneven but "tell it back to me" and "breakfast on the train" are both top shelf, true vintage. "the hotel / was her idea / it was expensive / ah, but it was near"

"Diamonds" is wonderful." The gay song is a solid exercise in empathy with a few clunky rhymes.

I like this a lot and was caught off guard by how long the songs were, which I didn't really notice until the disc stopped after eight songs. I wonder if that was a conscious decision when he was writing the songs, to let the stories go on longer wherever that may take them?

Saw his name the other day in the library, under a blurb on the back of Stuart Murdoch’s novel.

The cunt's written a novel now has he?

Your disdain for Murdoch is so dang reliable lol. Though post-God Help the Girl, the film, the notion of him venturing beyond songwriting again is admittedly terrifying.

Something about "Strawberries", the song, rubbed me the wrong way (mostly lyrically IIRC) so I've not rushed to hear more Forster this time. Hopefully in the fullness of time this response will prove embarrassing and regrettable.

it's the worst song, yeah.

This is another solid album.

It's a bit patchy to my ears, but a lot more good than bad. I can't really get with Good to Cry, Strawberries or All of the Time, but the rest is good to great. Lots of great Robert deadpan lyrics. There was a rugby game in town. Oh yeah, oh yeah.

I like "Strawberries" a lot, admittedly under the influence of the video, but also the context that was provided by the previous album. These two went through a lot and I love hearing them be old and happy for those three and a half minutes. They earned it.

I didn't know to expect a novel from Forster until Google's algorithm decided I'd want to know it's out there, today. Guardian reviewer has reservations, it seems.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/may/15/songwriters-on-the-run-by-robert-forster-review-go-betweens-frontman-hits-a-dud-note

Municipal library has ordered it. I'm 6th in the queue!

Has any rock/pop person ever written a good novel? I really enjoyed Robert's memoir, but this novel is sounding pretty dire...

a certain underrated aerosmith

Forster's passing through all the standard stages: (i) memoir; (ii) develop the perfect muesli; (iii) write some fiction...

xps How are Leonard Cohen's novels? (The two I have in mind pre-date his recording career.)

Also I think Richard Hell's written a couple of fiction novels that were well-received.

Nick Cave wrote a surprisingly good film (The Proposition and no one else is credited as the screenwriter). He's written two novels IIRC, and at least one of them may be good.

(To be clear, I haven't read or finished any of the books I've mentioned, so I can't give any personal input on their quality.)

Been meaning to read Robert Hunter's novel for a while, the couple of pages I sampled were pretty awesome.

Richard Hell's books are definitely good