Artist: Justin Townes Earle
Album: Single Mothers
Bitrate: 242kbps avg
Quality: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.98.4 / -V0 / 44.100Khz
Label: Loose Records
Genre: Country
Size: 53.99 megs
PlayTime: 0h 29min 46sec total
Rip Date: 2014-09-16
Store Date: 2014-09-22
Track List:
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01. Worried Bout the Weather 3:33
02. Single Mothers 2:48
03. My Baby Drives 2:11
04. Today and a Lonely Night 2:55
05. Picture in a Drawer 4:09
06. Wanna Be a Stranger 2:33
07. White Gardenias 2:40
08. Time Shows Fools 2:59
09. It's Cold in This House 3:11
10. Burning Pictures 2:47
Release Notes:
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One of the most winning qualities about Justin Townes Earle's music has been its
modesty; his best work is dominated by an easy, unforced groove that's part
Memphis and part Nashville, and the music doesn't get in the way of the lyrics
but glides side by side with a subtle insistence. While Earle generated a cool
Stax-gone-acoustic sound on 2012's Nothing's Gonna Change the Way You Feel About
Me Now, 2014's Single Mothers eases back into a spectral, middle-of-the-night
sound, with Earle backed by a low-key three-piece band and the pedal steel
guitar adding a mournful tone to most of these songs of lonely lives and broken
hearts. (The simple approach matches the album's brevity, which comes in a mere
30 minutes.) The spare, often stark surfaces of the arrangements and production
on Single Mothers make a set of sad songs sound all the more downbeat, and
Earle's reputation for hurtin' songs isn't about to change when folks hear this
album; "Picture in a Drawer" and "White Gardenias" are abject tales of romantic
rejection, "My Baby Drives" is a witty number with a painful subtext, "Worried
Bout the Weather" uses an oncoming storm as a striking metaphor for unrequited
love, and the title track about busted marriages and the emotional toll on
everyone involved is all the more difficult to hear when one knows how much it
mirrors Earle's own life experiences. There are moments where Single Mothers
feels like art therapy as much as music, but this album communicates its pain
with intelligence and a gentle touch, and as a singer and lyricist Earle grows
with each album; there are more than a few moments of brilliance on this set if
you don't mind sharing a rough and lonesome road with Earle for a while.
Single Mothers is EarleÆs first record for Vagrant Records, his first as a sober
man and a married man. Single Mothers is not an overtly happy record, though, as
indicated by the title. Rather, it illustrates a shift in perspective in how
Earle reconciles with his pastùfrom his famous fatherÆs abandonment to his own
parallel substance abuse. He addresses his own upbringing on the title track
with such poignancy as, ôAbsent father, oh, never offers, even a dollar / He
doesnÆt seem to be bothered / By the fact that heÆs forfeited his right to his
own, now / Absent father, is long gone now.ö But Earle also digs back to his
youth of listening to Billie Holiday, telling her story in his own heartbroken
way on lead single ôWhite Gardenias.ö Most surprisingly, Earle seems to
transform parts of his past into positive, up-tempo fun on ôMy Baby Drives.ö
While the familiar ache still haunts Single Mothers, Earle treats it with new
wisdom, choosing instead to ramble forward, rather than perseverate and drift
waywardly back.