A SONGWRITER with a 40 year career of hitmaking will be playing in Settle as part of his tour supporting his latest album.

Best known for some of his hits such as ‘Lydia’, ‘McDonald’s Girl’ and ‘Ariel’, Dean Friedman has begun his 40+ date European tour on which he is promoting the new fan-funded album, ‘12 songs’.

As his first album release in seven years, Dean was keen to provide the dedicated fans on his tour with some new material.

He said: “I’ve always tried to paint pictures in my songs, with words and music. Recording in a studio, turning the songs into an album, allows me to add colour and shade and texture to those sonic portraits and aural landscapes.”

‘12 Songs’ is an amalgamation of musical styles including jazz, pop, rock, folk and country, with themes including love, frustration, success and failure.

Friedman touches on the notions of missing home, the terrors and joys of raising kids, dissertations on the physics of time and space, randomness and causality.

There’s a song about a kite (a loose metaphor for the start of Friedman’s recording career) and even a song about ducks which tells the ‘true story’ of the Easter Rising, a failed uprising in Ireland 1916.

Friedman will play the Victoria Hall on May 20.