An Ode to John Cunningham, The Best Songwriter You’ve Never Heard Of
Whenever I’m in the mood to convince one of my friends that John Cunningham is one of the best songwriters of all time, I don’t mess around. I play this song for them.
It starts with the melodic, meandering melancholy of the opening piano chords. Then the delicate, understated vocals. At 1:20, at just the right moment, the drums kick in and introduce a new phase of the build-up. The somber vocals give way to a violin swell. There’s a subtle change in tone, then without a hint, melancholy is fully replaced by fury. You’re taken over by a Brian May-style guitar breakdown—and as you start to wonder where it could possibly go next, Cunningham’s song comes to a roaring halt, and it feels as though the energy built up over the past four-and-a-half minutes explodes over the ensuing silence.
And in that moment of silence, my friends’ reactions are almost uniformly along the lines of, “Whoa.”
It’s a masterpiece. Yet somehow, I’ve never met anyone who’s heard it.
Google “John Cunningham.” See what you come up with. You’ll find a lot of John Cunninghams, but you won’t find the one who wrote that song. You won’t find him on the second page of results, either. You might find a YouTube video eventually, but you’ll have to dig. A word of warning: this John Cunningham is not the same John Cunningham as Scottish fiddler John Cunningham. He’s also not an RAF officer nor an American attorney. I even have an uncle named John Cunningham, but guess what? That’s not him either. (By the way, I’m not related to this John Cunningham in any way that I’m aware of.)
But John Cunningham is not my personal Mr. Snuffleupagus. Other people have heard of him, and they’ve heard his music. On the Amazon page for Cunningham’s 2002 album Happy-Go-Unlucky, there are three glowing reviews. Reviewer George T. Parsons calls this album “a quiet masterpiece” and Cunningham’s “most eloquent and ambitious work.” Hugues Orsetti, in his review, puts it better than anyone: “The musical world of John Cunningham is secret and different from what we use[d] to hear.”
The Internet is peppered with hidden praise for Cunningham’s work. The Liverpool native garners comparisons to Nick Drake, Elliott Smith, Emitt Rhodes, and—maybe not so surprisingly—the Beatles. In a 2010 review of a double-album reissue, Matthew Fiander of Pop Matters all but apologizes for not having listened to Cunningham’s music sooner: “Cunningham is an artist that can win you over in the best way possible, with well-written and passionately played pop songs. And while these aren’t the only albums Cunningham has to offer, they’re an awfully good starting point as we try — and we really should try — to correct our mistake of not catching on to him sooner.”
I first came across John Cunningham in 2005 when I downloaded Happy-Go-Unlucky from a website called eMusic, which I’m surprised to find out still exists. That album is now available in the aforementioned double-album package with 1998’s Homeless House. Both are two of my favorite albums from any musician, and I highly recommend you get your hands on the double album however you can.
Homeless House and Happy-Go-Unlucky share many commonalities, but the former offers a more subdued approach. Cunningham never seems compelled to blow the lid off and belt his hooks. Instead, he pushes through with a canny confidence in his vivid lyricism and thoughtful complexity of arrangements. “Quiet and Slow Time” is perhaps the best example of this. Once again, Cunningham proves he is a master of the slow build-up, taking almost six minutes to bring the song to full elucidation—though it never seems that long.
Going from Homeless House to Happy-Go-Unlucky is a bit reminiscent of Elliott Smith’s transition from Either/Or to XO or Figure 8: it sounds just a little fuller, a little more urgent. From the first song, “Losing Myself Too,” Happy-Go-Unlucky wastes no time getting to the point. Cunningham takes a deep breath, punches the piano keys, and sings his first line:
Can you help me? The last time I saw myself I was here / Camouflaged, wishing I was somebody else with amnesia
It might be Cunningham’s catchiest song, but it’s deceptively wistful—thus setting a precedent faithfully observed throughout the rest of the album.
Happy-Go-Unlucky may end up being one of my all-time favorite albums, and I really mean that. To me, it’s that good. But what’s infuriating is how inaccessible the rest of his music can be. Looking at his complete discography, Cunningham appears to have three other albums released prior to Homeless House. Listening to those three other albums in their entirety has proven to be a veritable quest for the holy grail.
Just as mystifying is how Cunningham’s music production seems frozen in time at 2002, the year Happy-Go-Unlucky was released. I’ve scoured the web for traces of creative activity, but I’ve found very little about his recent efforts—which somehow makes him even more mysterious and charming.
Admittedly, part of Cunningham’s allure to me is his obscurity. It’s almost unbearably intimate: here’s this nearly-anonymous 46-year-old British man whom I, a totally-anonymous 29-year-old man in the western United States, have regarded as a genius. I scour the internet, awaiting any hint of his next brilliant work. But the hints end up feeling more like teases.
John Cunningham remains a secret to the world, and all I have from him are nineteen songs and a reassurance that he’s alive and well. That’s good enough, but it’s maddening to me that no one is hearing what I hear. I’d be happier if more people knew who John Cunningham was—the same one whose music I’ve never gotten tired of. The one who’s written some of my favorite songs. The one who has never failed to make my friends say, “Whoa.”
But maybe he doesn’t want the attention or the pressure. Maybe, as far as John Cunningham is concerned, “everything is in its right place.”
Note: Aprevious version of this essay misattributed a YouTube channel belonging to a different musician named John Cunningham. Whoops.
Note 2: The real John Cunningham finally released a new album in 2016 called “Fell,” and it is everything a John Cunningham album ought to be. You can listen to and purchase the album here.
