“My father is called Miranda these days. She’s a proud transgender woman and my resentment has started to fade …”
So begins Frank Turner’s striking new single, Miranda, a song inspired by the Hampshire-born singer/songwriter slowly rebuilding a relationship with his trans parent, following nine years of virtual silence. The pair were eventually brought together in 2018, at the bedside of Turner’s terminally-ill uncle, by which time his nemesis was living as Miranda.
“Immediately I felt that this was a person who was a lot more considerate,” Turner remembers in a new interview with The Guardian. “More aware of the people around them and of their impact on other people. Less boringly male and forthright. Miranda is a really nice person, and my dad was a prick.”
“When anger and resentment and rage didn’t die immediately,” he admits, “there was a lot for me to deal with.”
The new relationship between the pair would evolve slowly, and remains a work-in-progress. But where there was once only bitterness, hurt, rage and distrust, hope has taken root.
“She’s really fun, really chatty and she cares,” says Turner. “[She’s] interested in who I am and what I do, which my dad never was at all. It’s always going to be a work in progress, but we’re doing all right.”
FTHC is scheduled for release on February 4.
