Tag: bruce springsteen

LISTEN: The Weepies, “Backstreets”

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Bruce Springsteen’s arena shows are legendary, yet his songs can be pared all the way down to just a few voices and a ukulele – as heard on this rendition of “Backstreets” by folk duo The Weepies. The poignant track is a centerpiece of an upcoming compilation album, Born to Uke, which recreates the rock star’s iconic Born to Run album on ukulele. Proceeds from the project will benefit Little Kids Rock, funding music education in underprivileged public schools. Ahead of the album’s release date of January 18, 2019, The Weepies’ Steve Tannen spoke about the new track.

The decision to cover a Springsteen song isn’t to be taken lightly, especially one from Born to Run. What kind of emotion were you hoping to capture in your recording of “Backstreets”?

Obviously the reason songs are great is that you can’t quite express the emotion any other way but the song. I’ll do my best knowing I’ll come up short. The key line for me is: “After all this time we find we’re just like all the rest, stranded in the park and forced to confess / to hiding in the backstreets.” It’s not just sad–it’s romantic, hopeful, and stark, and revelatory. Early friendship and disappointment can be transcendent. I connected to this as a 17-year-old, and I feel the same now as a dad. I think our spared down version reflects that.

To me, Springsteen is one of the best songwriters about dreams that don’t work out. When you think about the lyrics of “Backstreets” in particular, what sort of imagery comes to you?

The end of the night when I was alone in my teens–I see me and my friends late at night at diners and in cars. Most of those friends are gone or we all moved into a different place in our lives, split off from a few singular moments as teens. I like that I can revisit those moments through songs.

To some people, ukulele appears easy to play — but I imagine it could be tricky, even for seasoned musicians. What has been your experience in getting comfortable with that instrument?

We were given a Mya-Moe ukulele a few years ago that is fantastic. I’ve played guitar for decades, so it’s pretty natural. I definitely play uke like a guitar player though!

I believe that music in public schools was a saving grace for a lot of the Americana, bluegrass and folk community. Why is an organization like Little Kids Rock important for you to support?

Programs like this are like rain in the desert for bringing something holistic to schooling. Beyond reading and writing, the experience you take from school is holistic no matter what–you learn how to be a person, and what you need to do be happy or survive in society. Music and art are essential to getting me through life with some enjoyment and grace. The more of that that is in education, the better chance for a positive connection.

Photo credit: Robert Sebree

Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith, The Over-Sharing Songwriter

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Taylor Goldsmith is done trying to be cool.

“I feel like there’s an aversion to sentimentality in 2018,” the Dawes frontman (pictured far right) says from his home in Los Angeles. “And I think for a long time I wanted to try to figure out a way to play by those rules. I would write the songs in a certain way; I would maybe even carry myself onstage in a certain way because I was aware of that fact. There was a coolness that had always been there I guess to varying degrees, but I feel like now more than ever it’s important that if you’re a guy in a band, you have to not mean what you say, not know what it means, you have to kind of keep your ballcap pulled down as far as it can go and just kind of recede into the shadows of coolness. And as time goes on and when I feel most myself, I find that just not who I am, and I’m never gonna be.”

That self-awareness is evident on Passwords, the band’s sixth record. It’s an outward-looking album, one that deals with modern themes ranging from the current political climate to social media’s effect on our lives, but it also sees Goldsmith stretching his wings as a songwriter by both pushing himself out of his comfort zone and leaning in to an emotionality that has always been a part of Dawes’ oeuvre.

Case in point: the lovely “Never Gonna Say Goodbye,” written for his fiancée, the actress Mandy Moore. That song poured out of him one night while he was on tour in Detroit. (“Songs typically don’t come out that fast for me,” he says. “They take a good month or two sometimes.”) It was meant as a private “I miss you,” and Goldsmith never intended for it to be heard by anyone besides Moore until she and his brother Griffin convinced him it belonged on the record.

“The main thing [I struggled with] really was the sort of lover’s language that’s really nobody’s business, like the way anyone speaks to the person they’re with when they’re going to bed at night or waking up in the morning or the way they look at each other,” Goldsmith says. “That is the most sacred, private world that I would never dream of wanting any access to. So for me, I was like, ‘Man, this is a very vulnerable moment for me, to say “I love you and I miss you.”‘ It was just a quick thing and I didn’t really want everyone to be eavesdropping, you know? But that ended up being what I liked about it. Because it was like, ‘Okay, what is art? What is music supposed to be other than sharing these personal attitudes that can resonate with someone else?'”

Producer Jonathan Wilson, who worked with the band on their first two records and reunited with them on Passwords, helped Goldsmith feel that he made the right choice about “Never Gonna Say Goodbye” when they got into the studio to record it.

“I was talking to Jonathan about it, and I was like ‘Is this song a little too…much?'” he explains. “I feel like we would all love it if Willie Nelson recorded it in 1973 maybe, but in 2018 is that acceptable now? And Jonathan was like, ‘That’s exactly why I like this song so much. That’s exactly why this should be on the record, because people don’t have the guts to go to this more vulnerable and intimate and earnest place.’ And so that’s something that I used to be scared of because I wanted to be this sort of obtuse artist that was impenetrable because that’s what I’ve always admired in songwriters, but the reality is I’m never gonna be that. The more I embrace what comes out naturally, the better it all feels.”

That approach helped him unlock the album’s themes; though Passwords is not a concept record, its songs share a commonality that make it feel cohesive and uniquely tethered to life in 2018. Goldsmith credits “Crack the Case,” a call for empathy in a time when our country is more divided than ever, with helping him find a direction for the rest of the album’s tracks.

“Oftentimes I find that the themes and ideas present themselves,” he says. “‘Most People’ and ‘Things Happen’ are pretty much about the same thing, and I think that’s pretty cool. I think that’s indicative of a certain attitude being consistent, or something that was really on my mind. Or when I listen to ‘Born to Run’ and ‘Thunder Road,’ one’s almost a continuation of the other, but it’s something that I love about those two songs and that time in Bruce Springsteen’s career, where ‘there’s a better world out there and get on my motorcycle and I’m gonna take you there.'”

He laughs. “In every Bruce Springsteen song, it becomes the identifying mark. It becomes the fingerprint. So with this album, after writing ‘Crack the Case’ and then all of a sudden writing ‘Living in the Future,’ in a way it’s like these songs are about the same thing. One of them comes from a much more paranoid place, but it’s still in the chorus like ‘we’re living in the future, so shine a little light.’ That line could be in ‘Crack the Case.’ So the way that certain songs would bleed into each other and kind of play different angles of the same conversation, that’s something I didn’t think about until it was all written.”

But his plea for entertaining other perspectives on “Crack the Case” isn’t just directed at others. As he gets older, he has challenged himself to get out of his own head and try writing more through the eyes of others, whether it’s the fear and resignation of “Stay Down” or the weariness of “Feed the Fire,” where he’s “working for attention I’ll eventually resent.” (“The song is in this mode of ‘I,’ it’s in first person, but it’s not representative of how I feel,” he says.)

“I think that as time goes on, like anything, anyone who does anything for a living, there become things where you feel like, ‘Cool, I did that and I don’t want to do it anymore because I know how to do it now. I wanna do something that I don’t know how to do,'” he explains. “And for a long time certain approaches to songwriting or to song structures became what I would go back to because that’s what I wanted to learn how to do, especially like ‘Coming Back to a Man’ or ‘That Western Skyline,’ songs that I’m very proud of but also songs that were sort of building blocks for me to take those concepts and then follow into the way I speak as an adult rather than a young guy looking to be a songwriter. There’s a lot of talk of like sunsets and mountains and rivers on our first few records.”

He laughs before continuing, “It is very songwriterly. And that’s because I was learning the language, and as time has gone on, I’ve been trying to figure out how to find the lyrical, find the song in something that otherwise wouldn’t seem like one, you know? When I wrote ‘From a Window Seat’ I was really excited, I was like, ‘This is a song about the weird, obscure metaphysical fear of flying, and it should be off-limits from a band like Dawes, but here it is.’ And I try to keep chasing that down, finding things that just seem like they’re not lyrical and they’re not up for discussing through song. But then more than that, the thing that’s important to me is trying to explore the difference—like when I listen to early music that I wrote, it’s a lot of just me, me, me.”

He adds, “And that’s still the case, and that’ll always be the case, but at the same time, I want to make sure I’m coming from a place where I can adopt attitudes that I don’t identify with….certain perspectives that are not my own, certain narratives that I’m not even a part of, that stuff I feel like is newer. That’s how my writing’s changed. I feel like it’s all as indicative to how I view the world as it ever has been, but trying to take it beyond ‘I love you and you love me, let’s not lose each other, blah blah blah.’

“Because that’s part of what it is to be in your early 20s, but now I look at these songwriters that have these long, rich careers, and a lot of it is because they know how to tackle concepts that are bigger than relationships, that are bigger than self-reflection. They might involve those qualities, but they reach for more ambitious concepts. And so that’s something that I try not to think about too much, but I know that when I sit down to write a song, if it’s going to motivate me to finish it, I want to feel like it’s terrain that I haven’t covered before.”

Even when he doesn’t necessarily agree with what he’s singing, there’s a certain sincerity at the heart of Goldsmith’s songs—perhaps stemming from his ability to place himself in someone else’s shoes sans judgment—that he’s learning to take pride in, no matter how unhip that makes him.

“There’s this coolness that exists right now, and when we come across people that stand up against it and just say how they feel and they don’t mind being emotionally available and earnest and clear and proud, it’s an inspiring attitude,” he says. “I mean, that can come from a person like Bruce Springsteen or it can come from a person like The Rock. His attitude and his sense of gratitude and the way he presents himself in this world, I think there’s something very deep and enlightened about it. He has transcended coolness, and that’s amazing because he’s not here to pretend like he’s some impenetrable artist. He’s not here to pretend like he doesn’t care. He definitely cares, and he’s definitely grateful, and he’s definitely proud, and if we all took a bit of a tip from that attitude towards life, I think it would actually edify us. It would motivate us.

“And so I think for me as a songwriter, after all this time of not knowing where I stood, like, ‘Well, how do I be the cool guy? How does David Bowie be David Bowie? How does Father John Misty be this kind of enigmatic Father John Misty?’ And the reality is that’s just who those people are. And I am the person talking to you right now; I’m the over-sharer. And me coming to terms with that has been kind of the best feeling I’ve had as a songwriter in a long time, like the more I embrace myself directly corresponds to how true I feel my music is. It should be a simple enough lesson to learn pretty early on, but it’s not. It’s really hard. There are few things harder than getting to know yourself and then committing to it. So if someone heard this new album and felt like ‘I’m more willing to be myself. I’m more willing to be open and earnest and share the way I feel,’ I dunno, it sounds cheesy saying it out loud, but I feel like if that were to be something that someone was left with, that would mean a lot.”


Photo credit: Magdalena Wosinska

BGS 5+5: Mariel Buckley

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Artist: Mariel Buckley
Hometown: Calgary, AB
Latest Album: Driving in the Dark
Personal Nicknames: Bucks

Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?

My influences are always changing, but a cornerstone of my education in songwriting will always be Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. It is one of the most well put-together, genuine, and captivating group of songs I’ve ever heard. The fact that he recorded them to be demos for the E Street band on a four-track is mind blowing. It’s so bare bones and not demanding of anything except your attention to his words, which are near perfectly crafted. I try to take that approach when I’m writing. If it isn’t good enough with none of the bells and whistles, it isn’t good enough for anyone to hear.

How do other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

I spend a lot of time reading biographies of artists — musicians, actors, writers. The telling is always so honest. And that, to me, is the most important part of creating art. It’s sharing a really vulnerable piece of human existence in a way that not many people feel comfortable doing. So reading those narratives always gives me lots of empathy, which fuels a ton of my writing.

What’s the toughest time you’ve ever had writing a song?

I recently went almost a year without writing a single word on paper. It was excruciating. I was depressed and felt empty of inspiration or any kind of story to tell. “Why is what I’ve got to say so important?”
When I removed my filter of self-deprecation, I realized that my lack of inspiration was due to a lack of confidence, point blank. So I wrote about that, and then I wrote this entire record.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

My pre-show ritual is hard to beat: fear of being late for soundcheck, an hour too early for soundcheck, change my shirt, sweat through that shirt, change into a second shirt, crippling anxiety, self-doubt, burst of confidence, SHOWTIME.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

To never sacrifice authenticity for accessibility.

Canon Fodder: Tracy Chapman, ‘Tracy Chapman’

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For the week of August 27, 1988, the number one song in America was George Michael’s “Monkey,” a crackling dance-pop tune off his multi-platinum Faith. Rounding out the top 10: Elton John’s “I Don’t Wanna Go On with You Like That” and Chicago’s “I Don’t Want to Live Without Your Love,” along with “Simply Irresistible” by Robert Palmer and “Sweet Child o’ Mine” by a new band out of L.A. called Guns n Roses. Lodged at number six — as high as the song would climb, but still remarkable — was “Fast Car,” by a young singer/songwriter named Tracy Chapman, who just a year earlier was busking in coffee shops around Boston and Cambridge. She had released her self-titled debut in the spring, and “Fast Car” had become a radio hit. She was a curious presence on the singles chart, as she was not a pop artist nor does she play power ballads: “Fast Car” is an acoustic ballad about poverty, hardship, and the kind of dreams that prove more burdensome than freeing.

She was never going to give George Michael a run for his money, but Chapman’s success in 1988 is remarkable for a newcomer making her debut, especially one who chronicles the lives of people who can’t afford to buy albums or cassingles. In “Fast Car,” a pair of lovers determine to escape their hardships together. “We gotta make a decision,” she sings, “leave tonight or live and die this way.” They move to the city, look for jobs, live in a homeless shelter, have kids, continue to struggle as much as they ever did. The end of the song is ambiguous, as the narrator tells her lover to leave: “I got no plans. I ain’t goin’ nowhere, so take your fast car and keep on driving.” Is she giving the driver their freedom? Or has her lover become extraneous, one more anchor weighing her down? Is it an act of love or of its opposite?

Bruce Springsteen is the obvious touchstone, in particular songs from Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River — his grimmest albums with his most desperate characters, many of whom drive fast cars and nurse dashed dreams. In other words, Chapman was not as much of an anomaly on the charts as she might have initially appeared. Just a year before, Suzanne Vega notched a number three hit with “Luka,” about child abuse and our responsibilities to the people around us. And even before that, there was a song that shares a story with “Fast Car,” albeit definitely not a sound: Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.” As the Reagan era died down in the late 1980s, pop music was reflecting the woes of the country back to itself, and Tracy Chapman appeared in 1988 as the culmination of pop’s newfound social engagement.

Chapman grew up in working-class Cleveland, raised by her single mother who saved money to buy her daughter musical instruments. She began writing songs as a child and, after winning a scholarship to a progressive private school in Connecticut, Chapman began performing at the school coffeeshop. An anthropology major at Tufts, she developed a reputation, locally, as a protest singer, which brought her to the attention of a fellow student named Brian Koppelman, whose father co-owned a major publishing company. Soon, she had a record contract with Elektra and a new manager (who also managed Bob Dylan and Neil Young). Making her debut, however, was much more difficult, because most producers declined to work on a folk album. Eventually, David Kershenbaum, who had previously helmed hits for Duran Duran and Supertramp, accepted the job and promised to keep the music austere and subtle.

The focus is on Chapman’s expressive singing and surprisingly dexterous acoustic guitar playing, which naturally led fans and critics to connect her with the ‘60s folk revival. They’re not wrong, but the comparison is more limiting than revealing. Yes, Chapman sings about revolution and peace and poverty and the military-industrial complex just like Dylan and Baez, but her musical palette is broad. “She’s Got Her Ticket” rides a percolating reggae beat without sounding like a musical tourist. “Baby Can I Hold You” is a domestic drama staged as chamber pop. “For My Lover” is a thumping blues number, with Chapman boasting about spending “two weeks in a Virginia jail … for my lover, for my lover.” (Given the persistent and unseemly speculation about Chapman’s sexual orientation, it’s tempting to hear that song as a gay blues, which would place the song in the tradition of Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey.)

Perhaps the most startling moment on Tracy Chapman is “Behind the Wall,” which she sings a cappella. It’s a story about domestic abuse, the narrator describing the violent arguments she hears coming from the apartment next door, and the lack of any accompaniment contrasts the noise that keeps her up and eventually draws the police. Chapman pauses between the lines of the verses, letting that silence scream loudly, yet the song is as much about how society ignores or disregards the dangers faced by women, in particular black women: “It won’t do no good to call the police, always come late, if they come at all.”

Not everything is quite so powerful. Some of Kershenbaum’s flourishes anchor the music to 1988, in particular the sitar on “Baby Can I Hold You.” And, occasionally, Chapman skirts actual outrage for naïveté, especially on “Why?” “Why are the missiles called peacekeepers, when they’re aimed to kill? Why is a woman still not safe, when she’s in her home?” Her desire for safety and community are sound and all sadly relevant today, but the rhetorical structure of the song does them little justice. Answering rather than simply asking those questions would make a more substantial song. Chapman had been working on many of these songs for nearly a decade, back when she was at that private school in Connecticut. There is a youthful idealism animating many of them, which is at odds with the harsh realism that animates others. That tension gives the album an electric jolt, even 30 years later. Tracy Chapman is the sound of a young artist clinging to her optimism, even in the face of so much cynicism.

Tracy Chapman peaked at number one on the album chart and earned three Grammy nominations, including Album of the Year. She lost to George Michael, but did pick up a trophy for Best New Artist. Also in 1988, she appeared on the Amnesty International Human Rights Now! Tour, on which she shared a stage with Springsteen, Sting, Peter Gabriel, and Youssou N’Dour. Was it all too much too soon? Chapman’s follow-up, Crossroads, released a year later, was arguably better than her debut, but sold fewer copies. She enjoyed a massive hit in 1995 with a 12-bar blues called “Give Me One Reason,” but it seemed like a fluke. Gradually, Chapman’s musical protests grew more general: Songs like “The Rape of the World” and “America” are as broad as their titles, less rooted in story and character, no longer enlivened by the well-observed detail or the thorny insights. As of this writing, it’s been a full decade since she released an album of new material, and yet, Tracy Chapman sounds as sadly relevant as ever.

BGS 5+5: Pauline Andrès

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Artist: Pauline Andrès
Hometown: Nashville by way of France
Latest Album: Fearless Heart
Personal Nicknames: Musicians call me P.A, Spanish friends Paulinilla, Southern friends Mama.

If you could spend 10 minutes with John Lennon, Dolly Parton, Hank Williams, Joni Mitchell, Sister Rosetta, or Merle Haggard how would it go?

Tough choice between Merle and Dolly. I guess I’d go for Dolly because such a moment would surely get me high on a crazy good mood for about a month. I would humbly ask for two pieces of advice: one from Dolly, the songwriter, and one from Dolly, the businesswoman. I’d also thank her for both her badass career and the incredible fun I had at Dollywood last Christmas.

Since food and music go so well together, what would be your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

My life would be complete if I could ever have a big slice of pizza with Springsteen. Wouldn’t even need to talk. But if I could hear an anecdote or two, then my life would be extra complete.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

Work in the best interest of the songs and nothing else. If it does not serve the songs, it ain’t worth doing.

How do other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

Literature plays a big part. When I write a song, I always start with an idea, concept, or actual plot. Rarely with a melody or rhythm. Storytelling in the form of books, tales, or poetry is the brainier sister of songwriting. A couple of songs I’ve released are entirely based on literary influences and many are just sprinkled with more subtle references. “On the Doorstep” is feeding off Lovecraft’s writing in every single line and was inspired by at least 10 of his short novels. “She” was born from my obsession with fairy tales — the original, darker, and often Eastern versions of the stories we (think we) know so well.

As you travel around the world, what is the overriding sense you get of the people?

It’s fair to say I’ve traveled a lot and for longer periods of time. At the end of the day, whether in Nashville, Hanoi, or Berlin, you just see the same people with similar-ish struggles. The scenery changes — that’s all. The scale of the problems, too. But not their essence.

It’s probably this universality, this pain that we share, that allows music and arts to create such amazing connections that cross languages and borders. When you travel intensively, you also realize that idiots come in all sizes and languages; therefore, any generalization about a nationality or culture is not only morally wrong, it’s literally not true. People are people. Fact. And the touching part, for me, is to see that most just do the best they can. Even when that ain’t much.

Canon Fodder: John Mellencamp, ‘The Lonesome Jubilee’

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The Lonesome Jubilee was released on August 24, 1987, just a few weeks after Def Leppard’s Hysteria and a few weeks before Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven on Earth. But unlike those two albums, it is not getting a new 30th-anniversary edition. No remastering, no bonus tracks, no unearthed live cuts or alternate takes, no new liner notes, no think-pieces or take-downs. But John Mellencamp’s ninth album certainly deserves the deluxe treatment — and not only because it’s a rousing collection of politically barbed folk-rock songs. The best reissues allow us to hear old music in new ways, providing a fresh context in which artists might speak to a different moment and to a different generation. The songs on Jubilee speak very loudly, and they have as much to say in 2017 as they did in 1987.

Mellencamp recorded the album in late 1986 and early 1987, taking his road-tested touring band into his Belmont Mall Studio outside of Bloomington, Indiana. As usual, he worked with his long-time producer Don Gehman, who had helmed his breakthroughs during the transition from Johnny Cougar to John Cougar Mellencamp. Two crucial things had changed in the singer/songwriter’s life, one professional and the other personal. First, his longtime label Riva Records had gone out of business, leaving him briefly homeless. He soon signed with Mercury, where he remained for the next decade. Second, his uncle, Joe Mellencamp, died from lung cancer, and his passing lends the record an intense mortal resignation. While many of these songs may sound like they’re about other people, in fact they are about John Mellencamp delving into his family’s personal demons. According to a 1987 New York Times feature, he wrote first single, “Paper in Fire,” about “my family’s ingrained anger.”

By all appearances, it didn’t look like he had very much to be angry about. Mellencamp was coming off an incredible run that had established him as one of the biggest stars of the decade, alongside such well-remembered celebrities as Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Michael Jackson. Starting with 1982’s American Fool, he had devised a form of heartland rock that was unpretentious yet inventive, universal enough to appeal to anyone who heard it, yet eccentric enough to show the man behind the music. He had an easy way of rolling social and political issues into his songs, avoiding the all-caps melodrama of Springsteen, as well as the studious obscurity of R.E.M.

Sound followed setting. Mellencamp hailed from Indiana, where small towns were suffering, farmers were hurting, and regular Americans were shouldering the burden of corporate greed with nothing to show for it. In 1986, together with Willie Nelson, he co-headlined the first Farm Aid concert and testified before Congress in support of Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin’s Family Farm bill. In that same New York Times article, he explained that the giant corporations are “willing to exploit John Doe and let America become a third-world country, economically, if it benefits them.”

Throughout the 1980s, his populist mission informed songs that were based in strictly rock and pop sounds, in particular electric guitars. His catalog is littered with sharp and evocative riffs: the ominous growl of “Scarecrow,” the scene-setting rhythm of “Jack & Diane,” the horizon-expanding fanfare of “Rumble Seat.” While present on The Lonesome Jubilee, the electric guitar is primarily an accent to an arsenal of folk instruments largely foreign to MTV and the Billboard pop charts: fiddle and hammer dulcimer, autoharp and mandolin, penny whistle and accordion, dobro and lap steel. It wasn’t country, but it wasn’t folk either. Mellencamp called it a form of “gypsy rock,” rooted in his Dutch and German ancestry.

That musical palette gives The Lonesome Jubilee a special place in Mellencamp’s catalog and perhaps an even more impressive spot in pop music, more generally. Thirty years later, it might be one of the best-selling roots rock albums of all time, a bigger risk than the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack; there is something brazen about Mellencamp’s embrace of these sounds, something ornery in his insistence that these traditions had a place in mainstream pop music. And yet, it still sounds like nothing else. His band deploys these instruments in unexpected ways, giving what might otherwise be guitar riffs to John Cascella’s accordion or Mike Wanchic’s dulcimer or, most often, to Lisa Germano’s fiddle. In particular, the strident urgency of “Paper in Fire” is grounded in her sharp bowing, which is industrial in concept if not in sonics: like squealing brakes on a car, or grinding gears in a factory, or perhaps a quarry saw through a block of limestone.

Mellencamp’s gypsy rock does a lot to tease out the meaning in his lyrics, whether evoking a specific regional setting in which these stories play out or simply providing an optimistic counterpart to his sometimes pessimistic worldview. If Springsteen (to whom Mellencamp is too often and unjustly compared) wrote about dreamers either escaping or succumbing to the drag of life, Mellencamp is much less romantic about the ordinary Americans who populate his songs. Rarely do they even have dreams or vistas that extend beyond the city limits. As Robert Christgau wrote in his A- review, “His protagonists don’t expect all that much and get less, but they’re not beautiful losers — they’re too ordinary, too miserable.”

When his characters reflect on their lives, they do so with a generational nostalgia that often obscures the source of their despair. “Cherry Bomb” is a gentle song about looking back to a more promising time in life. “We were young and we were improvin’,” he sings, but the implication hangs heavy in the melody: Age has brought personal stagnation. They’re just getting by, focused more on the golden past than the uncertain future. It’s easy to mistake the song for exactly what it lambasts — a rosy view of the past as paradise, when America was “great” and life was full of possibility. It’s a deceptive illusion: “That’s all that we’ve learned about happiness,” he realizes. “That’s all that we’ve learned about living.”

A politically left-of-center missive from the heart of the Reagan era, The Lonesome Jubilee requires almost no adjustment for the late 2010s. Mellencamp begins every verse in “Down and Out in Paradise” with the same refrain — “Dear Mr. President …” — before relating some poor soul’s story. It’s a ploy that recalls Woody Guthrie without being precious about the reference or, worse, deferential. Mellencamp knew Reagan wasn’t listening, just as he knows that our current president doesn’t have the capability to empathize with or understand the hard lives of the everyday Americans who inexplicably voted for him. Meanwhile, those same small towns wither, those farmers have long ago sold their fields, and regular Americans shoulder an even greater burden with less to show for it.

Perhaps even more impressive than sneaking dulcimers and autoharps into the mainstream is smuggling this brand of American fatalism into arenas and concert halls around the world. The ordinary Americans suffer while the rich stuff their wallets. Maybe you could have once argued that some things never change, but the discrepancy between 1987 and 2017 suggests that some things actually get worse. “Generations come and go, but it makes no difference,” goes the Bible verse that Mellencamp quotes in the liner notes. “Everything is unutterably weary and tiresome. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied … So I saw that there is nothing better for men than that they should be happy in their work, for that is what they are here for, and no one can bring them back to life to enjoy what will be in the future, so let them enjoy it now.”

Maybe it’s not the most generous vision of human existence, but it’s certainly one that motivates Mellencamp’s empathy. Life is short, and we should make it as enriching as possible for as many people as possible. We should live squarely in the moment because yesterday, today, and tomorrow will all play out more or less the same. It’s a potent brand of cynicism, yet beautiful and American, too.

The War on Drugs, ‘Strangest Thing’

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My mother just doesn’t get the “electronic” songs, as she puts it. Never did, really, especially when things started getting really wispy, super synth-y, shoegaze-y to the nth degree: Growing up on Janis Joplin and the Rolling Stones, she likes her music with an emotional drive that makes the bones rattle, not one that shoots you into the clouds. And it’s true that, sometimes, heavily electronic music can be difficult to make a visceral connection with, especially if you are used to the organic reverberation of real drums and wood instruments — or especially if you don’t have any hallucinogenic substances to nudge you along on the way to submission.

Part of what has always made the War on Drugs so powerful is the way they bridge that modernity — particularly dreamy splashes of synth — with the organic core of rock and folk (Bruce Springsteen and ’80s Bob Dylan are common references). Lead by the voice of Adam Granduciel, the band’s newest single, “Strangest Thing,” sounds like a song made for those who enjoy being both grounded to the earth and united with the air. Rolling in to a slow, plaintive beat with synth and keys that ring like darts of sunlight, Granduciel asks questions that transcend those generational splits: “Am I just living in the space between the beauty and the pain?” he sings. From their forthcoming release, A Deeper Understanding, it’s the perfect swirl of acoustic and electric to reflect a time obsessed with the past but raging fast into the future.

3×3: Zander Hawley on Books, Boots, and Bruce Springsteen

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Artist: Zander Hawley
Hometown: Los Angeles, CA
Latest Album: When I Get Blue
Personal Nicknames: Z

 

tickets still up for @backstagenashville tmro see you there

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If you could safely have any animal in the world as a pet, which would you choose?

That Melanie Griffith-lion relationship was always super interesting to me, but I’d probably want a lady lion instead of a guy.

Do your socks always match?

Absolutely. 

If you could have a superpower, what would you choose?

Whatever gets me on the X-Men.

 

songs and stories from the album next weekend at @3rdandlindsley with @backstagenashville

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Which describes you as a kid — tree climber, video gamer, or book reader?

Book reader. Books would distract me from anything I was supposed to be doing — my parents tell me they would come into my room to find that I’d put on maybe half an outfit before the book took over.

Who was the best teacher you ever had — and why?

Vanessa Mancinelli, senior year high school literature teacher, because she had even more fun reading than I did.

What’s your favorite city?

I was born in New York, but only lived there for the first five years of my life, so whenever I go back, I’m always hit by a strong sense of nostalgia. Last time I was there, I saw Springsteen play for the first time, so that pretty much sealed it. 

 

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Boots or sneakers?

Boots.

Which brothers do you prefer — Avett, Wood, Stanley, Comatose, or Louvin?

Oh man, can I write in a different set? I’d probably choose the Grimms or the Summers.

Head or heart?

I wish I could say both, but I have to say heart. 

3X3: Sara Petite on Love Potions, Fun Runs, and Rainy Days

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Artist: Sara Petite
Hometown: Sumner, WA (now resides in San Diego, CA)
Latest Album: Road Less Traveled
Personal Nicknames: SWEET PEA

 

Sara Petite Band at Humphreys Happy Hour tonight 5 to 7pm #roadlesstraveled #honkytonk

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If you could go back (or forward) to live in any decade, when would you choose?

Right now is the perfect time.

Who would be your dream co-writer?

Lori McKenna, Brandy Clark, Patty Griffin, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty

If a song started playing every time you entered the room, what would you want it to be? 

“Love Potion #9” from Herb Alpert’s Whipped Cream album. It is really sexy music. I would be wearing something really slinky and sexy — when I walked in, everyone would look at me! I would come in with a big sexy “you want me” smile, then I would start to strut my way across the room and I would trip and fall and make everyone laugh! And it would happen every time that song came on! 

What is the one thing you can’t survive without on tour?

Toothbrush, clean underwear, and socks

What are you most afraid of?

I’m not sure — there isn’t really anything to be afraid of anymore. I would like to die the same day as my twin sister. It would probably be too difficult on this planet without her. All the things I thought would kill me or wreck me forever haven’t. I’m still here, still breathing, and have a smile most of the time!

Who is your favorite superhero? 

I just did a fun run and made my own superhero costume. I was Super Sweet Pea. I had a sequined S on my chest, a purple cape I sewed flowers on, and I ran with a bunch of fake colorful hydrangeas in my hand. We ran down through canyons, neighborhoods. I fell on my ass a few times down the hills. It was a lot of fun until people started exposing themselves — very uncomfortable! I didn’t know that was the type of club I joined, yikes! I am totally bummed not to be in the running club anymore because next week was going to be the Big Lebowski run, and me and my best friend were going to run in bathrobes holding a 10-foot joint, whilst partaking in our own joint smoking. I have decided to possibly make my own run club or join the Sierra Club in hopes for more of a PG-13 environment. I was only there to run, drink, and wear my superhero costume, man!

 

Sitting in with the Sunday band at Pappys

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Pickles or olives?

PICKLES! I went to a restaurant the other day, and they were out of pickles. How can someone be out of pickles? I ordered a cheeseburger, extra rare with extra pickles.  

Which primary color is the best — blue, yellow, or red?

Not sure. It probably depends how I feel.  

Which is worse — rainy days or Mondays? 

I love rain. I grew up in Washington. And I love Mondays. They are new beginnings!

Blitzen Trapper Head All Across This Land

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Since they came on the scene 15 years ago, Blitzen Trapper have made music that blends country and folk ideas with an arena rock attitude. Their newest album, All Across This Land, cuts a broad musical swath through American music, from Springsteen's Jersey to Michael Stanley's Midwest (with even a bit of Jolly Old England in the mix, too). 

You and the band are on road as we speak, right? Somewhere between Austin and Alabama?

Yep, that’s right.

Is it still fun being on the road?

Yeah, the shows are fun.

People are reacting enthusiastically?

Yeah, definitely.

I guess you could say you’re all across this land to promote All Across This Land. [Laughs]

Yeah, pretty much. [Laughs]

Did some of these songs get worked out on the road before they were recorded?

No, no. I wrote them all during a spell when we weren’t touring at all. I’m always trying to write songs, here and there. This is just the kind of group that I came up with, I liked, and they all kind of went together. It just kind of seemed like a record.

Are there bands that have influenced you over the years that were in the back of your mind when you were writing the songs?

I guess I wanted to give more of a kind of classic Americana approach. Older Americana, like Springsteen and Neil Young. Just kind of that eclectic guitar, rock, folk mixture.

“Let the Cards Fall” reminds me of Wilco. Tell me how that song came about.

That one is sort of hard to remember, honestly. I think I had the chorus first. That one has a very personal creative ethos to it. The chorus is kind of just me talking, you know? The verses are images from Oregon — all the wildness. The whole song just kind of came one day.

That one has images of Oregon, but it feels like you’re headed down the road somewhere in this lush, green part of Tennessee or something. That’s the way it sounds to me.

Lyrically, that whole first verse is about a forest fire coming your way.

I love the guitar and vocal textures in “Mystery and Wonder.” Tell me about that one, from a recording standpoint. How was it put together?

That one was initially acoustic guitar, bass, and drums. Then we layered on other guitars. The guitars in that one are pretty ambient. It’s straightforward, as far as that goes. There are keyboards and piano that comes in here and there. It wanted it to sound really lush and full.

I think the whole second side of the record has that sort of feel to it. The first side has got some nice textures; it kind of teases you. The second side gets real big and wall-of-sound-ish. “Nights Were Made for Love” reminds me of listening to the radio when I was a kid. Kid Leo on WMMS used to play Michael Stanley all the time, it kind of reminds me of that sort of thing.

Yeah, for sure.

The title cut has a glam-rock-ish edge to it. It reminds me a little bit of Edgar Winter during the 1970s, when he was really, really popular. [Laughs] How does that sound to you?

That one is more Thin Lizzy.

Thin Lizzy?

The guitar on it, yeah. The riffs and guitar on that are pretty great. I think that Joe Walsh was a big influence on that one.

Well, if you put Thin Lizzy and Joe Walsh together, you kind of have Edgar Winter. [Laughs]

Right, yeah.

At least when he was doing “Frankenstein” and when he was a popular artist, as opposed to when he was doing “Tobacco Road” and [Edgar Winter’s] White Trash and all that sort of business. Which songs, of the new ones, are the most fun to play on the road right now and why?

I think “Cadillac Road” and “Love Grow Cold” are pretty great live. And “Nights Were Made for Love,” those three are probably my favorites to play live.

Are you working in a lot of the older stuff with the newer stuff?

Oh, yeah.

Well, you’re coming to Portland at the end of November. Is that kind of a homecoming show for you?

Yeah, that’s the last show of the tour.

Are you going to go back out in the Spring and hit up other parts of the country?

Yeah, I think we’re going overseas in the Spring. We might do some smaller market stuff in the Spring, as well.

Photo by Jason Quigley