Easing the Mind

Can you imagine the words "Apocalypse" and "lullaby" going together?  Because "Apocalypse Lullaby" is tonight's featured song.  In this song from the Wailin' Jennys' "Firecracker" album, Annabelle Chvostek (one of the band's past altos) wrote and sang lead.  The other Jennys join in for the harmonies, and I was noticing how Chvostek has a voice that at sometimes sounds like Makana's.


Now, Chvostek opens the song by saying that eventually, natural disasters occur, and civilizations fall, but at this moment, the person that she and the Jennys are singing to should concentrate on the present, and rest.  They instruct the person to imagine a place no light shown.  Then in that moment of concentration, just listening to their voices, the listener follows their heart to a place of home, a sense of golden warmth.

The lyrics for this song aren't always that easy for me to decipher.  I feel like some of the phrases are purposefully abstract and strung together because they sound pretty and soothing.  Unlike James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James" or some of the more traditional lullabies, Annabelle Chvostek doesn't try to write about sleep or put a bedtime story to music.  Instead she eases the restless mind.  The song is slightly hypnotic as it lulls the listener.

Benefits of Companionship

If I was to tell you that today's selected song comes from the soundtrack for a children's movie, you'd be thinking Disney, right?  That could easily be the case.  I am a big fan of Disney soundtracks, but  I'm writing about 2006's Curious George.  While some songs were covers or revisions, Jack Johnson performed all the songs for the movie, and released them in the album Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George.  There was even a hit music video on VH1 (and possibly MTV) where Johnson sang Upside Down while swimming with Curious George.  I can't tell you how tempted I was to choose that song today, but I went with something a little bit lesser known.  It's called "Broken."

It's a song about companionship, but unlike his normal love songs, this is a little more universal in what type of relationship the song can refer to.  It can just as easily be about a romantic couple as it can be about a man in a yellow hat who has found a kindred spirit in a little monkey.

The song opens with Johnson singing about embracing the present and future with this person that he's singing to.  Leaving the past behind.  Although still working towards a sense of completion, it's much more preferable a journey with this person by his side.  Admirably Johnson imagines that this person may already have their life altogether.  He doesn't know if they even needed to put much effort into finding him, but he didn't exactly know what to look for in a potential companion until meeting this person.  In the end, Johnson sums up that what he's done before meeting this person has some value, but none of these achievements are as great as what they can do together.  

Between you and me, I don't think this song was just meant to refer to a cartoon monkey and his best friend.  The song is applicable to that situation, but it has all the tell-tale signs of a classic Jack Johnson love song.  There are songs where he writes about other subjects (songs that I'll get to in due time).  This just where music led me tonight.  I hope that you have the open minds to embrace soundtracks not always necessarily created for adult ears.  If it's music from Frozen, the Sherman brothers, the Ashman & Menken, the score of the Incredibles or other pieces.  I can even think of some Disney songs by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz that comes from one of the more under appreciated films from the animated canon.  

Yearning for Grace

Of all the Civil Wars' songs, I think that tonight's feature comes closest to the Christian contemporary genre that Joy Williams had started out in.  Like songs from her solo career (to mention some examples, "Hide" or "Every Moment"), "From this Valley" is just so invigorating and uplifting.  It makes you want to sing along.  It also has some strong folk influence from her singing bandmate John Paul White, and Phil Madeira also had a hand in the song.  Honestly, I'm not sure exactly who contributed what to the song, but it reminded me personally of Joy's early work.

Much of the song is describing different cases of desire.  An outcast wanting acceptance, a desert wanting a nearby river, and like an orphan wanting its mother, the singer wants to be held in God's grace.  The catch refrains are about praying to go from the valley to the mountaintop, where she'd be closer to God.  In the last verse, like air beneath a bird's wings or a melody supporting a voice, she prays that Jesus carries her.


Yeah, this is easily the most "Christian contemporary" that a Civil Wars song has ever gotten.  I'm sorry to those who feel uncomfortable with songs so much about faith.  I don't listen to many acts in this genre, but I dabble.  I'm a spiritual person with a respect for other faiths, and think that people from many different faiths may be able to relate to the wanting of closeness to the divine.  I think that I'll let this ember cool a little, before writing about other super spiritual songs, but be warned that I can even find a mystical connection to some seemingly secular recordings.

She Who Can Quell His Anxiety

Amos Lee is a musician frequently played on my Pandora station.  With a soulful folk style, his
music fits in with that of Norah Jones or Eva Cassidy.  Some of his songs are pretty recognizable, but it was this lesser known song from his first album that jumped out at me.  It's because "Arms of a Woman" seemed to resemble James Taylor's "Something in the Way She Moves."  The two singer-songwriters may have been going through different experiences at the time, but they have common ground.  They both write of feeling anxieties dissipating when in the presence of a specific woman.

He begins the song singing (as the title suggests) that he feels "at ease in the arms of a woman."  Unfortunately, he's often alone in a state that's a great distance from the comfort that he'd find in the familiar.  Amos uses "miles" as a unit of measurement when explaining the distance, but being thousands of miles away from some place could easily be a figure of speech used to explain his emotional state.  She then takes him home when she wakes him.  The second verse is written in a different pattern.  He describes a childlike fear of imaginary ghosts that haunt him (like someone afraid of the dark).  As much afraid he is in this lack of light, he can't muster the courage to flip the light switch.  It's that woman in his life that soothes Lee, taking the singer "home" from that anxious state.

Unlike the J. T. song that I mentioned earlier (where three verses and a refrain read like a meditative stream of consciousness), much of Amos Lee's song is anchored by the repetition of some key components.  With all due respect to the artist, I would suggest that the limitation as an expression of how lyrics alone may not perfectly depict what he feels.  Changing around the pattern of delivery on his second run through the lyrics allows emotion to take more control.  Both songs have similar messages though conveyed with varying styles of American folk music.  Both are well crafted songs about what brings these sensitive men to a calm state of mind.

Repeatedly Repentant

For anyone who lived in the greater Boston area back in the 90's, do you remember when Kiss 108 would have a special segment late at night where a new song would be added to the station's programming?  One night, it may be the version of Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" that had clips from the movie interjected into the song.  Another night, it may be US debut single from All Saints.  I remember when I first heard a song by Rebekah.  I didn't know who Rebekah was.  If it was one person, or a band named "Rebekah."  I just knew that "Sin So Well" was such a catchy song, but it wasn't popular enough to stay on the charts that long.

I couldn't figure out how to hear that song again, or learn about this artist who now performs as Rebecca Jordan.  In college, I would eventually find "Sin So Well" on YouTube.  Listening to it now, (18 years later) it's still great.  But I'm a little surprised to realize Meredith Brooks got more hate for having a song we she explains how she can be a "bitch" (similar to when in 1976, radio stations were standing against a certain Elton John song).  The truth is, that "Bitch" may have been cleaner than "Sin So Well" and a handful of other songs on the air.  And... Well... Brooks had some better songs on her Blurring the Edges album.

Now, before I tell you before I get into the lyrics, it may just be naive of me to not perceive this song at face value, and not a suggestion of a common sexual fetish.  The song is about a Catholic (there's mention of rosaries) who is spiritual, and trying to be a good catholic, but "sins so well."  She believes that it's wrong to give in to sexual urges until marriage, but finds it hard to get past the temptation.  I'm not sure how often she "sins so well," so I can't definitely say she's a sex addict or not.  I also can't completely discern the age, since I could see a mother worrying about such things regardless of their daughter's (or son's) age.  The thing is that the Rebecca's character acknowledges that what she continually gives into is wrong, and asks other to pray for her chastity.  It just sounds like an addict's fighting back the urge to relapse.  Then again, this could just be the cliche "horny Catholic school girl" trope, an ideal reciprocating person for Billy Joel's "Only the Good Die Young."

With all that analysis aside, I still find "Sin So Well" to be a very catchy but underrepresented song.

"Sin So Well" was the one big single from Rebecca Jordan's first album (1998's Remember to Breathe).  For one reason or another, Rebecca didn't release another album until 2005.  In that time, she did start building a reputation a as a talented collaborator, and co-wrote "Beautiful Disaster" for Kelly Clarkson.  In this modern age where artists can more easily have their own independent labels, Rebecca's released 4 more albums, and continues to collaborate on songs for others too.

So, take this as inspiration.  Not just for finding Rebecca's music, but also searching for the musicians who had passed quickly through your teen years.

Misplaced Love

Breaking from the standard of recording in a studio, the Cowboy Junkies arranged to record in a church on a November day in 1987.  The came prepared, got everything on tape (it was an analog age), and the Session album was released the next year.  The Trinity Session was a huge hit, and it's for those songs that the band is most known for today.  In this post, I'm going to choose one of the big singles from the Trinity track list.

Like the 10,000 Maniacs' "What's the Matter Here," the Cowboy Junkies' "Misguided Angel" is a story about abuse.  Differences are that it's particularly about spousal abuse, and that the song is written from the victim's perspective (not someone wanting to intervene).  This song (written together by siblings Margot and Michael Timmins) is just as important a message.  When the time came to record a Trinity Revisited in the same church 19 years later, Natalie Merchant (formerly of the 10,000 Maniacs) joined them in recording the new version of "Misguided Angel."

In each of the verses, the singer's character tells her family members (her mother, father, sister, and brother) that despite her husband's faults, there are many positive qualities to him.  Privately, she opens up, calling her husband a "misguided angel".  She picks two angels that she sees in her husband.  Gabriel (the messenger) and Lucifer.  Given modern culture, you probably know who Lucifer is referring to.  Dating back to chapter 14 from the Book of Isaiah, Lucifer had led a revolt against God, and was stricken into the ground.  Margot's character describes his heart to Gabriel, associating ivory tone of white with purity.  In contrast, the husband's soul is like Lucifer's.  "Black and cold like a piece of lead."  While coal is usually associated with the color black, I think that means more when lead is being compared with ivory.  While ivory and coal are carbon based (coming from life), lead is a raw metallic element.  

Metaphors aside, the most important part of the message, is that the character has fallen into a horrible mindset.  The husband convinced her that childhood's over and that she's his wife until death.  In many examples of loving relationships, pertaining to that part of the marital vows is perfectly heathy, but this isn't a loving relationship.  There's a beauty to the music and songwriting, but definitely a deep sadness as well.  Just as with "What's the Matter Here" (recorded 8 months earlier in Los Angeles), the track ends with us not knowing how the story ends.  The relationships that we learn about in these songs are left open ended, and I imagine that it's to show how society must change it's patterns.  I trust that we've come far as a people in the past 29 years, but however the miles behind us, we've got many more to go.

The Tale of Some Gallant Union Troops

Every now and then, I see a family band come up on my Pandora stations.  Be it Boyce Avenue, the sisters in the Waifs, the Cowsills, or the Timmins siblings.  The band I'm highlighting tonight is a bluegrass family from southern Illinois.  Phil and Dorene had been playing to music together for a long time, and as their three daughters (Melissa, Emily, and Alysha) grew up in that house, the kids learned how to sing and develop harmonies.  A son-in-law, Kyle, eventually joined (bringing the banjo and other talents).  Recently, Dorene has stepped back from the stage show.

Along with some covers of songs such as "Shine" by Collective Soul and "Cups" by the Carter Family & Luisa Gerstein.  The also write tons of original material.  Tonight's featured track is "First Minnesota" from their 2013 album Looking Forward.

In this song, the Bankesters teach us about a regiment from the American Civil War that I don't think that many of us learn of in school.  The 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, lost massive numbers of casualties at the battles of First Bull Run and Antietam.  It came to a head at Gettysburg when Major General Winfield Hancock ordered the First Minnesota to hold back Wilcox's Confederate troops while Union reserves arrived.  The 1st Minnesota was already outmanned and didn't know if they'd survive.  Nonetheless, for the sake of the Union, they bravely ran in to battle.  Of the 262 present in the charge, only 47 survived.  The survivors did battle again the next day during Pickett's Charge.  Losing to captains, the Minnesotans did capture the colors of the 28th Virginia Infantry.

Although there are ongoing battles over the confederate flag, I honestly  can't think of any other modern musicians who've recorded songs about Civil War battles.  They tend to be about more recent wars (and in ABBA's case, the 1815 Battle of Waterloo).  I'm glad to have come across this track, and will most likely write some more about the Bankesters' recordings in the future.