Welcome To Burning-By-Sea

This started as a song about a fictional seaside town inspired by Brighton, but somehow my hometown Portsmouth muscled its way in, to be followed by a hundred other seaside towns in all their faded glory, and ultimately, by the whole damn country. It ended up being a love/hate song to England. When people say they have a love/hate relationship with something, they often just seem to mean that they have mixed feelings or they're 'on the fence'. But there's nowhere that makes me more angry or sad than England, and nowhere I love more. This could only be a song full of contradictions. But it's all true.

— promotional material, Dec. 2025

I'm Not Sorry

'I'm Not Sorry' is about cancel culture. It's often a mistake to apologise just to save your career or reputation. There's no point in apologising to people who only want to destroy you.

— interview with German newspaper Berliner Zeitung, 8 April 2026

"It's not angry, it's sarcastic. It has some humour to it, you know? But I was thinking a bit about this idea of cancel culture. It always strikes me that when people want to cancel or censor you, it's completely pointless to apologise. Then they win in a way. It just makes everything worse. I was just saying, 'I don't know if I've done anything to offend anyone, but if I have, I don't give a shit'," Jackson adds with a laugh. Asked whether the song represents his personal feelings or is meant to be a character he created, he says, "That is me, actually. I don't think I'm the only one, so it's not just purely personal."

— interview with Spin (US), 7 April 2026

Do Do Do

It's a really silly song! Someone told me it sounds like a nursery rhyme. I'd never thought of that, but it could be. Of course, I couldn't have written it when I was younger: like many others, I was too serious at that age. It took me forty years to write a children's song!

— interview with Classic Rock (IT), April 2026

Fabulous People

[That song's central character] is a young, very ordinary, normal white heterosexual guy who just can't stand the fact that he's a normal, ordinary, white, heterosexual guy. He really wants to be one of the fabulous people. It's poking fun a bit.

— interview with Spin (US), 7 April 2026

It's a piss-take of L-G-B-T-Q-I-R-A-A or whatever. It's about time they added an S for 'straight', just to be inclusive. 'Fairy Dust' on Volume 4 is also taking the piss out of the gay scene. I've nothing in particular against it, but when people take themselves very seriously and demand all kinds of things, I can't help widening my eyes. That's the Pompey side of me.

— interview with MOJO (UK), May 2026

After All This Time

I always try to avoid clichés, but sometimes I like to use them deliberately, play with them, and turn them inside out. 'After All This Time' contains a series of clichés about things going wrong: 'a can of worms,' 'a sad affair,' 'a sack of woe' are all old English expressions. The idea is that everyone seems to have the same problems and end up breaking up at some point, and isn't that also a cliché? So why don't we all try to be wiser and stay together? Actually, the central point of the song isn't a relationship that's deteriorating: rather, despite everything, the fact that this relationship continues to move forward.

— interview with Classic Rock (IT), April 2026

The Face

'The Face', speaks to what many (most?) of us feel today: overwhelmed by what's happening in the world, feeling like those who govern us don't care about our needs and don't represent us.

— interview with Classic Rock (IT), April 2026

End Of The Pier

'End of the Pier', compares a knackered working-class family in 1922 with a knackered working-class family in 2022 and does feel a bit angry and sad.

— interview with The Times (UK), 6 April 2026

It's the most ambitious track on the album – and also the saddest. 'End of the pier' has become a fixed expression for something old-fashioned, corny, or uncomfortably nostalgic. I think people back then had harder lives, but they knew better how to enjoy life. We've lost too much of that.

— interview with German newspaper Abendzeitung, 8 April 2026

I started working on it and started falling into place. I had this idea that it would go forward in time halfway through. It would be kind of like looking at a working-class family just after the First World War. And then looking at not the same, but an equivalent family 100 years later in the aftermath of the COVID lockdowns and contrasting the two.
I had the idea that it would be very cool if each verse had the same structure and the same rhyme schemes. Basically, it almost sounded the same. It's like you're looking at the same thing from a different angle or something. It was a rather ambitious idea, and I wasn't sure if I could pull it off. So it took a lot of work. The lyrics took a long time to write. But I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.
— interview with forbes.com (US), 16 April 2026

See You In September

It's another joyful song, about taking time to enjoy life. My birthday is in August, and I like that because everyone's on vacation, the music industry shuts down, and I can relax. I've often found myself saying, "See you in September!" Again, as I think back to last year, there's a bittersweet edge, but in the bridge, I say it wasn't a waste of time. There's another jewel to add to your trove of treasure.

— interview with Classic Rock (IT), April 2026