The backdrop to this album is a US airman meeting a dark-haired woman singing in an Irish showband in Germany. Decades later, the son he never knew finally discovers his natural father’s identity, and is struck by the similarities in their lives as, like his dad, he too had fallen for a dark-haired Irish singer… a coincidence? Jakko M. Jakszyk says, “Son of Glen is a fantasy based around the idea my father, a man I never knew, is somehow guiding me from afar.”
It would be true to say Jakko has had a life! From playing in King Crimson, which is where most prog fans will know his name from, he’s also played in Level 42, as well as releasing solo albums with a little help from some of his famous KC prog friends … Collins, Fripp, Harrison and Levin, plus Van Der Graaf Generator’s Peter Hammill.
There’s no attempt on this album to reprise King Crimson. What this album comprises of is a collection of songs, mostly deeply personal vignettes, which see Jakszyk baring his soul about things and events which have occurred, helping to shape his life. Accompanied by a few famous friends, Ian Mosley, Gavin Harrison, plus his son Django, who provide a gorgeous and sensitive musical background to the emotions being expressed.
Eponymous title track ‘Son Of Glen’ is a ‘romantic fantasy narrative’ about what is discovered about his birth father, a ten-minute mini-epic where Jakko pours out his feelings for the man he never knew .. ”Hey Glen, I’d love to pretend, you’ve been watching over me since God knows when”. The emotion in the song conveys real feelings about the thoughts of an emotionally conflicted son. His feelings about other parts of his life, notably a fractured relationship with his stepfather, are also included. (Get A) Proper Job tells of his stepfather throwing him out, aged sixteen, for wanting to be a musician, and on ‘How Did I Let You Get So Old,’ he tells us how he only finally got to know his stepfather when he was close to dying … ”looks like I attracted your attention, just when you’re about to leave”. In both songs, the pathos is not overdone, and they’re not an exercise in self-pity. ‘Somewhere Between Then And Now’ tells of a close friend who died far too young, and on ‘I Told You So,’ he states that confronting and understanding childhood traumas experienced during a not-always-happy upbringing doesn’t necessarily eliminate them. Â
You could say this all adds up to a triumph over adversity, as Jakko ultimately ends up playing with his boyhood heroes, King Crimson, a band he saw when aged thirteen. But, a much fuller and deeper understanding of the feelings and emotions behind most of these songs can be found in his 2024 autobiography, Who’s The Boy With The Beautiful Hair, a comment attributed to his birth mother, the dark haired singer his father met in Germany who, at the end of her life, had Dementia and didn’t recognise her son.
