Every Album I Love is a series where I try to write about every album that I love, or die trying. Sometimes I’ll explain why I love them, sometimes I’ll tell the stories behind how I fell in love with them, sometimes I’ll do both. Most importantly, I hope you love them too.

Back in the early 2000s, if I wanted to hear an album without buying it, I would have to hope one of my friends owned it, and that they would let me copy the CD. As home computers with writable CD drives became more common, we could copy an album at as much as 8 times the speed of listening the record itself, a quantum leap from the previous method of copying onto a C90 cassette in real time on twin deck cassette player, I’m sure you’ll agree. I would turn up at friends houses with a spindle of blank CDs and raid their collection.

One particular friend introduced me to a lot of music, but possibly only one album that I’m still regularly listening to today: ‘Rules for Jokers’ by Thea Gilmore. At the time I first heard this record, I didn’t think of myself as a fan of folk music, but that’s because I thought of folk music as being a very specific thing, people with fiddles playing songs that were centuries old. I don’t even know whether Thea Gilmore considered herself a folk singer at the time (music writers seemed keen to place her into the more nebulous ‘genre’ of singer-songwriter).

To me though, this was folk music. Folk music written by someone my age (almost exactly, Gilmore is about 3 months older than me), about the world of now. “The percussion of buttons and keys in a cyber-cafe” may seem dated now, but back then it was revelatory to hear a line like that in a song like this:

This music spoke to me in a way which very few other artists had. Even a lot of the bands I loved at that time said nothing to me about my life (to borrow a phrase), and it was rare that I loved a band specifically because of the lyrics. In some cases it was in spite of the lyrics, in fact.

But then I hadn’t heard words like this before, every song a story, full of fully realised characters and beautiful turns of phrase. “My character witness just went down for perjury” from ‘Saviours and All’ and “The dogs are all barking Debussy in rounds” from ‘Saying Nothing’ being amongst my favourites.

It is one of those rare records where every song is excellent, from “This Girl is Taking Bets”, the closest thing to a rock song on the album, to the haunting ‘The Things We Never Said”. All Killer No Filler was the title of another, very different, record from around the same time, but Rules for Jokers really is. The sort of album that actually justifies one of those concerts where the artist plays the entire record from start to finish, because there’s not a single song you don’t want to hear.

My collection soon filled up with all the Thea Gilmore CDs to date, genuine originals rather than copies this time. I looked forward to new releases, and saw some memorable live shows including one whilst she was 8 months pregnant, and another featuring a rollicking version of Fairytale of New York with radio DJ Mark Radcliffe. There were many cover versions she played but never recorded, and wildly different arrangements of her own songs, making every show unique and wonderful.

I have dipped in and out of her career in more recent times, as having children of my own meant I found less time for music, but whenever I dove back in, new delights awaited, such as Grandam Gold from 2019’s “Small World Turning”.

Thea Gilmore’s career seemed to be going well, as far as one could tell from the outside. There were collaborations with the likes of Sandy Denny, Joan Baez and Mike Scott, some famous fans, and a decent amount of acclaim and success, without ever becoming super-famous herself.

A lot had changed for me since Rules for Jokers was released. For a start I can now play that album by speaking 6 words out loud towards a small orb on the corner of my desk, and couldn’t tell you the last time I listened to a CD. More importantly, I am no longer a confused young man, but a confused middle aged accountant, with a family and a mortgage and a driving licence, none of which I thought I would ever have back in 2001.

It turns out a lot has changed for Thea Gilmore too. Back in 2021, she announced she was releasing two albums simultaneously, one intended to be her last as Thea Gilmore, and the other her first as Afterlight. The reason for that change was the end of a relationship which had lasted as long as her recording career, a relationship which was coercive and controlling. Just listen to the opening track from the Afterlight record (below) to hear her describe this with typical bravery and eloquence.

As it turned out, she has reclaimed the Thea Gilmore name for subsequent releases, but the Afterlight record served as a circuit breaker in her career, with every record that came before it by a different Thea Gilmore to the records that came after.

Does this knowledge change my relationship with Rules for Jokers, knowing it was created, on some level, under duress? Yes and no. There’s a part of me that can’t help but wonder what Gilmore was going through when she made it, what record she might have made instead had she been given free rein to be her authentic self. However, it can’t change how much the album meant to me back in 2001, or how great it still sounds today. So many records, sadly, can be tainted once we know more about the personal stories of those involved, but for better or worse, great music can also make us forget.