Hello Saturday morning! I have a
very lazy weekend, which is exactly what I need sometimes. I plan to spend a
lot of time with Sheila and listen to a lot of music.
Disc 893 is….Single Mothers
Artist: Justin
Townes Earle
Year of Release: 2014
What’s up with the Cover? They grow up so fast don’t they?
Particularly when they pose in adult clothing and get all serious. This cover
has a nice simplicity to it, and a hint of trouble in the expressions of the
kids which is exactly what the album calls for thematically.
It may
just be the Canadian in me but is that a portrait of Burton Cummings in the
background? You may ask “which portrait” but I’m pretty sure you can guess who.
Get it? Get it? Man I crack myself up.
How I Came To Know It: I went to buy Earle’s 2015 album
“Absent Fathers” and this album (which is really a companion piece released
just a few months earlier) was also there so I bought it at the same time.
How It Stacks Up: I have four of Justin Townes Earle’s albums.
They are all pretty close in ranking, but I’ll put “Single Mothers” first. The
competition is tough, though, and on any given day it could be as low as third depending
on my mood.
Ratings: 4 stars
Heartache
is a common theme in music, but not everyone does it well. Justin Townes Earle
does heartache like a champ, and “Single Mothers” is him at his rainy-day finest.
As Earle’s
career has progressed he has infused more and more blues into his music. Most
of the songs on “Single Mothers” have bluesy chord progressions but I still can’t
rightly call it blues. There are too many elements of country and rock infused
throughout. Like a lot of good artists, Earle is hard to categorize.
The
opening track is a prime example. “Worried
Bout the Weather” has a country mosey to it that is reinforced by a steel
guitar, but Earle’s delivery is all about the blues. He has a very interesting
throaty-tone to his voice and he kind of warbles around like a latter-day Otis
Redding in a lower register. I suspect he’d like the comparison.
Earle
tends to tackle very personal topics and for the most part he foregoes metaphor
in favour of plain talking. Of course there are exceptions (“Worried Bout the Weather” is not
actually about the weather) but for the most part Earle doesn’t want any sugar
coating on the bitter pills he’s swallowing.
Every
Earle album has a song that punches me right in the solar plexus and leaves me
gasping for air. On “Single Mothers” that song is “Picture in a Drawer” which is one of the top ten depressing songs I’ve
ever heard. It has a quiet almost muted production that makes you think of
someone sitting in a dark room with thick curtains drawn. When Earle’s voice
breaks that spell it is only to expose the darkness in the mind of the person
sitting there, reluctantly taking a call from his momma:
“Ah but momma if you don't mind
can we talk about something else?
Momma please don't come over, this
ain't nothing you can know
You'll be the first to know when
I start to come around
I'm not drowning I'm just seeing
how long I can stay down.
“Momma she's gone, just a picture
in a drawer
Kind of hurt that takes a rainy
day and hurts that much more
Momma she's gone, well you know
there's nothing tying me to this town
Now that she's gone
Don't know why I ever come back,
I guess I just tagged along
I can't believe that once I
called this place my home
I'm walking the streets and all I
see is ghosts.”
Note how
Earle deftly creates lots of long ‘o’ internal vowel rhymes but never allows
the lines to rhyme perfectly, creating a sense of unease and incompleteness.
But forget all the English lit analysis: put this stuff to music and it busts
me up every time I hear it. Despite this I can’t stop putting it on over and
over again. It is wallowing at its absolute best.
After
hearing “Picture in a Drawer” Earle
turns the tempo up, but “Wanna Be A
Stranger” and “White Gardenias” but
they are still more songs about relationship breakdown. They may not be as
perfectly poignant as “Picture in a
Drawer” but lines like “my heart didn’t
break/it tore apart like paper” keep the quality of the heartache at a high
level.
The
record is only 10 songs and 29 minutes long and it always ends too soon for me,
but it is good to be left wanting more. Packaging-wise, I’d like a record this poetic
to include a lyrics booklet, but I suppose in 2014 with the CD market dying
that is a pretty big ask.
The
album ends with “Burning Pictures”
which is a fitting end to a record with this much hurt on it. It’s got a
triumphant feel and a rock guitar riff that shakes off the torpor and reminds
us that at some point we have to shake off our past mistakes and regrets. As
Earle puts it “aren’t you tired of
lighting fires and burning pictures?” The music implies that our
curtains-drawn momma’s boy might just decide to get outside and see the world. Knowing
Earle it’ll still be raining, but this is great music for walking in the rain.
If you
are only going to get one Justin Townes Earle album then you are an idiot.
However, even idiots deserve a break; give yourself one and buy “Single
Mothers.”
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