Kids On The Firing Line - Harvey Jay Dodgson

Pre-release review

It’s 8 months since Harvey Jay Dodgson released Freedom. The young singer / songwriter from Portsmouth spent a big part of the summer playing at Festivals and now he’s looking forward to his 2nd release of the year, as well as his first London headline show, both on the same day.

His new single, Kids On The Firing Line is about the risks that social media pose to children and what is (not) being done to protect them. Harvey Jay Dodgson mentions all the things that children could be exposed to in the online world and what impact they could have on the development of their personalities. The brain washing with the hate which could shape them up the wrong way, as well as the exposure to perverts. The result of the constant blind battle for power and control by the technology giants.

“So let’s break the mould” is the line at the start of the chorus, which is a call for the society to take action. It’s a line that is repeated emphatically throughout the song, with Harvey’s passion clearly coming through.

I’ve known this song for about a year now, since I heard it live at The Camden Assembly in November 2023, where the video above is taken from. For a very long time, Harvey had been playing the song live all over the country and had been making changes to the structure and tempo over time. In the end, the production seems to have the kind of tempo and tone that I heard one year ago. It starts with an emphatic warning of what is being thrown at children and a warning about how things can escalate. Then, the beat kicks in. The structure of the song is very significant. With the initial verse followed by something that seems to be a 2nd level verse, then a pre-chorus and then the chorus, the drama is escalated in stages, making the message increasingly powerful, in line with the passion and tension in Harvey’s singing.

Harvey Jay Dodgson is known for escalating the passion and tension in his voice during a song. Another example of that is Alligator. It’s part of his identity, as a singer-songwriter who wants to express himself emphatically through his songs. When you hear that, you know he means what he sings.

The production is brilliant, just what is always expected from Harvey Jay Dodgson, who always seeks the highest standards in whatever he does. The distorted guitar sounds, add to the tense of the song. In the first chorus, with a bit of imagination, you could say the guitar sounds a bit like a siren, as he alerts the society with his message. The song ends with children’s voices.

Kids On The Firing Line is out on Wednesday 20th November 2024.

Harvey Jay Dodgson at The Grace

Also on Wednesday 20th November 2024, Harvey Jay Dodgson has his first London headline show, at The Grace, with support from The Chase.