I'll never get out of this world alive --- Steve Earle --- 2011 (New West)
Been waiting a while for this one! It's been four years now since the last Steve Earle album proper, although he did release a tribute to his friend and mentor Townes Van Zandt in 2009. This however is the first original album of his since 2007's “Washington Square serenade”, and I've been itching to hear some new Earle material, so let's dive right in on this, the last 2011 album to be reviewed by me this year.
It starts in fine style as “Waitin' on the sky” takes us in, a classic Earle tune with plenty of country in it and also lots of rock as Steve recalls living on a military base when he was younger. It's a solid song and opens the album with both a sense of living with the sword of Damocles hanging over your head as well as a shrug of the shoulders, a kind of “so this is how it is, not gonna let it ruin my life”, and so in that sense an air of perhaps misplaced optimism. That optimism disappears, to be replaced by cold, bitter anger at a certain “Dubya” on the bluegrass tune “Little emperor”, when Steve's political leanings come once again to the fore in his songwriting.
There's the usual lineup of great musicians on this album, with two females so that Earle changes his bandname from Steve Earle and the Dukes to Steve Earle and the Dukes and Duchesses! Some great fiddle, courtesy of Sara Watkins and banjo on this track, increasing the country feel and perhaps moving a little away from the last two albums, which planted their feet a bit more firmly in the world of rock music. There's an acapella opening with a very traditional flare to “The Gulf of Mexico”, and even when the instruments get going it's more like a trad song than a country one. I've seen this performed on “Later with Jools Holland”, so can tell you that Earle's wife (his
seventh! --- Doesn't this man ever have enough?) plays guitar, keys and occasionally sings on the album, and she does a great job here as her husband sings about his grandfather who
”Drew a steady paycheck/ Twenty years to Texaco/ When he died we spread his ashes/ On the Gulf of Mexico.”
There's a very celtic feel to the song, with superb fiddle from Watkins, and uptempo guitars from both producer T-Bone Burnett and Patti Smith's son Jackson, the beat kept tight by Jay Bellerose on the drumkit, a country flavour infused into the song via pedal steel from multi-session player Greg Leisz. The workaday feel of the song is suddenly brought into sharp focus though at the end, when Earle recounts a huge oil spill that made him think again about his chosen profession:
”Then one night I swear I saw the Devil /Crawlin' from the hole/ And he spilled the guts of Hell out /In the Gulf of Mexico.”
Acoustic banjo (is there any other kind?) and fiddle introduce “Molly-o”, a stripped-down song of murder and revenge, with Earle sounding a lot like James Taylor on the chorus. Weird. It's another bluegrass song, Watkins' sentimental fiddling lending it a graceful air, while one of the standouts comes in the shape of “God is God”, apparently originally written for Joan Baez. A nice ballad with a rhythm somewhat reminiscent of a much slower “Copperhead Road”, the song reflects Steve's belief that it doesn't matter what you believe, if God is there he, she or it is there, and your opinion doesn't change that. Some cutting lines:
”Every day that passes /I'm sure about a little bit less/Even my money keeps telling me /It's God I need to trust” and
”God of my little understanding /Don't care what name I call/ Whether or not I believe /Doesn't matter at all.”
A very Tom Waits vibe then about “Meet me in the alley” (wouldn't a duet between them be so cool?), with lonely, drunken horns from Allan Toussaint and guitar effects from Burnett and Smith, as well as mournful harmonica which all help to underscore Waits' --- sorry,
Earle's! --- low, growling vocal that complements the song perfectly. Real Nashville Blues goin' on here! “Every part of me” is another acoustic ballad, the type Earle does so well, with nice double bass and understated percussion. Some really effective mandolin in the background adds to the low-key atmosphere and fragility of the song, then it's another ballad for “Lonely are the free”, though slightly more electric this time: reminds me of “Lonelier than this” from one of my favourite of his albums, “Transcendental blues”.
That pedal steel is back, wailing in the background and anchoring the song as Earle sings in his plaintive drawl, in fact I find a lot of this album low-key and quite sad. In comparison to “Washington Square serenade”'s anger and the power and determination evident on “The revolution starts now”, this album comes across as world-weary, frustrated but too tired to do anything about it. Even the title, through taken from a Hank Williams song, reflects a sense of fatalism and acceptance that things will not work out as you want them to.
Allison Moorer joins him on “Heaven or Hell”, a more upbeat track but still pretty firmly in ballad territory, Leisz's pedal steel this time the dominant instrument rather than just a backing player. Moorer has a nice voice, and like that of his sister Stacey, it meshes well with Steve's. It's seldom he duets, and when he does he obviously picks voices that will complement and play off his Texas growl. Things keep slow and played-down for “I am a wanderer”, very country in its makeup, getting a little faster and upbeat as it goes along, but yet a song of a man who knows he will never again see home. This song was written for her, and there's a rumour that the vocals heard in the background belong to the great Baez, but I can't confirm that. Certainly sounds like her.
The album closes on the track that won it a Grammy nomination. Written for the TV series “Treme”, the closer is called “This city” and has a very New Orleans vibe about it, with Allan Toussaint's horns adding the colour to what is again a fairly dour song despite the optimistic lyric:
”Doesn't matter, come what may / I ain't ever gonna leave this town/ This city won't wash away/ This city won't ever drown.” Yeah, it's a low-key ending to a low-key album, and the very nature of the song reflects what little I saw of the series. I didn't like “Treme” and I can't say I like this track either.
On the whole, I must admit I'm quite disappointed. No rockers, no great statements of intention, nothing that remains in my head for long after the album has finished. I must admit, having watched him perform on TV I was a little anxious, as I wasn't that thrilled with what I was hearing. Listening now to the album all the way through, I'm similarly unimpressed. This is nearly as close to an acoustic album as you could come for Steve Earle, almost his “Nebraska”, though without Springsteen's sharp and touching line-drawings in music of characters and places. I would have to place this low on my list of favourite Earle albums: it wouldn't quite be “Train a-comin'”, but it's not too far ahead of it, and I really hated
that album!
Four years to wait for this? It's not a terrible album, and it wouldn't turn me off Steve Earle (nothing could), but I am hugely let down by this collection. Maybe the last few albums spoiled me, but I just would have preferred something a bit more upbeat and a bit more, I don't know, uplifting? I always got the feeling, listening to a Steve Earle album, that he believed he could take on the world and win, every time. After the last few albums, this almost feels like him giving up the fight, giving up on society. Perhaps it is. But I won't give up on his music.
It'll be a while before I play this through again though.
TRACKLISTING
1. Waitin' on the sky
2. Little Emperor
3. The Gulf of Mexico
4. Molly-o
5. God is God
6. Meet me in the alleyway
7. Every part of me
8. Lonely are the free
9. Heaven or Hell
10. I am a wanderer
11. This city
Recommended further listening: “Copperhead Road”, “Transcendental blues”, “El corazon”, “The revolution starts now”, “The hard way”, “I feel alright”, “Washington Square serenade”
Footnote: And so we come to the last review of a 2011 album in the year of its release. I will of course continue to review albums from this fast-fading year in 2012, but not under this banner. From tomorrow, or as soon as there are 2012 albums to buy and review, they will be the only ones which will populate this section. That may take a little time, as I don't know who is due to release albums in the first weeks of 2012, so bear with me. I'm as much at the mercy of the new year as you are.