FEATURED REVIEW.........................................................25 APRIL 2005
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Artist:
SARAH LEE GUTHRIE & JOHNNY IRION |
It must be tough being a Guthrie. You decide that you want to give the alt.country thing a try, so what do you do? Scrape together the remnants of an earlier version of Son Volt (Dave Boquist, Eric Heywood), toss in couple of Jayhawks for good measure (Marc Perlman, Gary Louris), get the Ungars to drop by and play a little fiddle, phone Pete Seeger, tell him to write you a song, and--presto--you're the darling of the alt.country underworld.
Exploration, the latest release from Sarah Lee Guthrie (and hubby Jeremy Irons--I mean, Johnny Irion--whatever) is co-produced by Gary "Where-the-hell's-my-Metamucil?" Louris. (This last time I saw the Jayhawks in concert, Louris asked the crowd to quiet down, the geriatric bastard. It seems some of the fans in attendance mistakenly thought he fronted a rock band. I've been to hundreds and hundreds of shows, but that was a first. Sure, I've seen my fair share of snarky folkies chide the chattering impolite, but I'd never seen the lead singer of a band tell an exuberant crowd to shut the hell up. Weird.)
Apparently Mr. Louris is more at home in a studio setting, with no pesky fans around to muck up his clean, crisp sound. In fact, this album sounds a lot like a Louris-led Jayhawks effort--catchy, fresh-faced, well-scrubbed, Minnesota-nice. You find yourself smiling, humming along. Until you notice the lyrics, that is--the inane, ham-fisted lyrics.
To be fair, we shouldn't saddle Ms. Guthrie with Mr. Irion's sins. Of the album's twelve songs, Sarah Lee wrote but two (and co-wrote a third). Her Johnny, on the other hand, contributes eight of the album's twelve tracks, and the man can trickle the treacle. Here's a representative nugget from the title track:
"Health
is everything,
Count your blessings and sing,
Listen to the kids and you'll fly high."
Oh, joy. This is just so gosh-darn inspirational. It sounds like the sort of drivel a twelve year old might write in her Secret Poetry Journal--you know the stuff, scrawled in Cheerleader Gothic, with hearts dotting all the i's.
Or how about this choice piece of cheeze, from "Georgia Pine":
"I
can see cloud nine honey,
From way up here.
It’s just around the corner,
So give me your hand sweet dear."
Yes, sweet dear, give me your hand. Dolores is dead. (No, wait, that was Jeremy Irons again, and--never mind.)
In other places, Irion takes a page out of Louris' muddled lyrical handbook (that is to say, he just strings together ridiculous crap and hopes no one notices). Sorry, we noticed. Here are the opening lines to "Kindness":
"Walkin
through town with a Nor'easter blowin,
Got my head outta tune, don’t know where I’m goin',
It’s just another day of tryin to get back to you,
Like a raspberry seed in my wisdom tooth,
I'd sometimes wished that I'd never met you,"
A raspberry seed in your wisdom tooth? Oh, now there's some poetic imagery. What are you composing this stuff with--refrigerator magnets?
The lyrics are the problem with Mr. Seeger's song, too--bless his earnest little heart. A verse from "Dr. King":
"We
sang about Alabama 1955,
But since 9-11 we wonder will this world survive?
The world learned a lesson from Dr. King,
We can survive, we can, we will,
And so we sing."
Oh, Lord. Protest music might not be dead, but you can put a fork in Pete Seeger.
The album is so rife with lyrical missteps that it almost seems superfluous to criticize the production. Nonetheless, we'd be remiss to overlook the title track, which someone has shined into a late-60s rock operetta, all bombast, piano glissandos, indulgent drumming, and arena guitars. Nice.
In summation: For the next album, hire a lyricist, an editor, a ghostwriter--someone. Three cheezeballs, wordsmith.
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A NOTE ON THE RATING SYSTEM:
5 CHEEZEBALLS = UNLISTENABLE SCHLOCK
3 CHEEZEBALLS = A DIFFICULT SLOG
1 CHEEZEBALL = THE ODD FORGIVABLE MISSTEP
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