Micko & The Mellotronics Are Back!
Guilty (Single)
MICKO & THE MELLOTRONICS
On the back of their success of 2023’s sophomore album ‘Le Vice Anglais’; Micko & The Mellotronics have just released a standalone single ‘Guilty’ whose narrative depicts the 1955 case of Ruth Ellis aka the last woman to be hanged in the UK - immortalised by Miranda Richardson in the 1985 film ‘Dance With A Stranger’.
Over the decades, historical songs have been perennially embraced by stalwart artistes like Iron Maiden or sporadically like Elvis Costello’s ‘Let Him Dangle’ - which shares a similar subject/time frame as ‘Guilty’.
The Mellotronics’ current release is wholly pertinent what with the 70th anniversary of Ellis’s tragedy just round the corner, and the forthcoming ITV series starring Lucy Boynton and Toby Jones about to air soon.
The song itself is not the first by The Mellotronics to feature a coercive female protagonist. Check out ‘Imelda’ from their debut album ‘1/2 Dove 1/2 Pigeon’. ‘Guilty’ is really a song for ‘listening to the words’ to gain a different perspective on the tragedy, and is beautifully functional in an educative way. Like a runaway express steam train, it refuses to take an aesthetic break in its standpoint.
It features biting rhythmic guitars and Micko’s trademark strained vocals exemplifying the shooting of Ellis’s younger lover David Blakely, that eventually led to a change in the law. Micko’s favourite author Raymond Chandler was one of the instigators.
