Normally Minnesota pop songster Jeremy Messersmith is pretty much Mr. Affable. I mean, the man wrote eleven cheery songs for ukulele and then recorded them as 11 Obscenely Optimistic Songs For Ukulele, with a tab book included so fans could play along. His five full-length albums released since 2006 are full of perfect portraitures of quirky characters struggling for love and fast times in Minnesota. But lately Messersmith has been turning his attention to more political themes. “The Mall of America” offers clever commentary about consumerism disguised as a tribute to a gigantic shopping centre in Minneapolis that “[i]f you blew it up I know they’d only build it all again.” With “Billionaires” he wonders what life might be like if everyone had a billion dollars. What sounds like an innocent query really amounts to a clever paean to equality and against economic exploitation. Then “Boomers” offers an actual plan to tackle today’s generational inequality arguing today’s economic and social problems could be dealt with if we just “wait for all the boomers to die.” Tough call but he has a point. And then Trump’s ICE descended on Minnesota and Messersmith’s Mr. Nice Guy mask dropped. “Fuck This” is a artfully insistent repudiation of the politics of hate that ICE and Trump represent as well as a call for all good people to be clear in their absolute denunciation of such politics. Buffeted by strings and Messersmith’s usual understated delivery, it loses none its searing intensity despite a disarming delivery.

When the going gets tough in America nice guy melody-makers like Messersmith are needed more than ever. And it turns out there’s also some pretty steely resolve behind his glasses too.