Jason Isbell, NLU reader?
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Nashville, Ryman Audtorium
Raleigh, Red Hat Amphitheater
Durham, Durham Performing Arts Center
A few of my favorite shots from his shows over the last 2 years.
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Thanks for sharing. This hits a little. I’m now afraid to listen to it because of your last sentence but I’ll give it a try. He’s gotten me through a bunch of stuff over the years. Found him in grad school thanks to some classmates and can prob recite the live album with the 400 Unit.
On a lighter note, one of my favorite rounds was playing that same album on an empty course at twilight on an August Saturday evening and just feeling completely relaxed and in the moment.
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Assuming you’re talking about Live from Alabama; that stretch from Decoration Day through Outfit is as good a live album gets for me. That album is also what got me into Isbell back when I was in college, holds a special special place in my music heart.
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Yes, the Alabama album. Couldn’t agree more. Hits me in different ways at different times, but all of the times its perfect. Cheers.
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The album is going to take some time to digest.
I think what’s initially odd about it is that some parts of the songs are so specific that is becomes sort of distracting to parse what isn’t.
As a long-time fan, I know just enough to be dangerous, as they say, without really knowing anything. Trying to absorb the overall quality of each song gets a little derailed in the noting of various elephants in the room in different lyrics. Universal themes get a little murky when he hits the nails squarely on the head.
I think Eileen is the best song, so far, thankful it’s not called “Amanda.” Even just using an aesthetically fitting other name makes a big difference. But the tonality of the melody and guitar part – a lilting kind of Emmylou Harris thing (there’s another artist it reminds me of, but haven’t pinned it down yet) – is really a standout for me.
I like Gravelweed, but it’s the one track where the production seems to not work as well. The mix is weird.
If Foxes had a different line than “I love my love” it could be a great song. It has a quality to it where you could hear it used in an HBO show or something.
Don’t Be Tough feels like an extension of Cast Iron Skillet in its cautionary message, but again, it’s less open to interpretation.
Maybe that’s the hurdle here. I used to think Isbell really carried the Prine torch of creating worlds within his songs, and in many he has. But just as someone like Dave Matthews has written much more pointedly direct as he’s gotten older, I’ve come to realize that Isbell has veered more in that direction. It doesn’t make it less compelling, but it doesn’t leave much for the imagination.
Then again, it’s one document in a great body of work.
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The live version was of Dress Blues absolutely kills me every time. Makes me think about a guy I grew up with, Austin Koth who was killed dismantling a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2005. Can’t get through that without a few tears.
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Agreed, on my second listen was less impressed with it, though the lyrics really hit me.
Think that “True Believer” is the one that could be the most popular song from the album.
Sorry for your loss. I was never in the military, but it always channels my 9/11 experience in Lower Manhattan and the friends and family I lost. Just a bunch of people who went to work who (sic) “Never planned for the bombs on the land and sleeping in their business suits”
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There’s a quote in that WSJ article about how he wanted to “participate in my own darkness” and didn’t feel like he could put the Unit through that. I’m looking forward to this album, but I’ve had an emotional year in my own right. This one might be a solo listen on a beach walk.
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Imagine listening to the live version for the first time and hearing your own name
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Just spent some time with the album. Immediate thoughts:
- Gravelweed is good. Eileen is unbelievably good. “I hope you’re sleeping through the night / I hope they’re grading on a curve” WOW.
- Wind Behind The Rain is one of his best love songs. Ending the album on a high note was really nice. Reminded me a lot of the Van Morrison song Into the Mystic. This is going to be so good live.
- Good While It Lasted stopped me in my tracks.
I’ll be in Vegas seeing Dead & Co when he comes through my town so I’ll probably miss him this year. The last couple times I’ve seen him he’s done a small number of solo songs in the middle of the set and I hope he continues that and mixes these in.
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I listened to the album twice through today. I’m not sure how the album will rank when all is said and done, but I think there are bits that are pretty damn good. I’m usually not one to make this sort of comparison, especially with Isbell because it’s almost a cliché in certain circles at this point, but Foxes in the Snow reminds me a whole lot of Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love . Neither album is for everyone, but when it is for you, or maybe when it finds you, it hits really, really hard.
I went through the nastiest breakup of my adult life (really, my whole life) last year. It wasn’t a divorce, but it was as close as two non-married people can get to one. It was one of the worst periods of my life. I spent a long time trying to find something musically that fit how I was feeling. I never really found it until this album. Is it a perfect analog? No, but I’m not sure anything is. Is a whole bunch of this album really goddamn close? Yes. Eileen, Gravelweed, and True Believer are as close as I’ve come to being able to point someone to a song and say “It’s that. What I’ve felt is that.” Good While It Lasted is right up there too. “All your girlfriends say I broke your fucking heart/ and I don’t like it/There’s a letter on the nightstand I don’t think I’ll ever read/Well, I finally found a match, and you kept daring me to strike it/And now I have to let it burn to let it be.” Even if it isn’t totally true, damn if that didn’t strike deeply.
The upshot of both the album and of life, I think, is this: “Well, I’m open and close now/to minding the flame/She speaks in a whisper and calls me by name…It’s time to be brave.”
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My hunch seems to be correct.
From the WSJ piece, I suspect this quote will sting her more than if he’d cheated in some ways.
*Shires “didn’t cheat, I didn’t cheat,” Isbell says. “We weren’t plate-throwers, and we weren’t yelling in front of the kid.” But there were divides over raising their daughter and tensions resulting from their lack of boundaries between work and marriage, he says. His career had also taken off in ways hers had not.
“It got to the point where, if something really good happened to me, I wouldn’t even mention it, because I knew it would hurt her,” he says, adding he too would have felt wounded if the roles were reversed. “It made the atmosphere unbreathable after a while…. I could see, 10 miles away, a drink headed in my direction.”*
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I know we’re only hearing one side of it, but that is such a shitty way to live on Amanda’s part. I’d rather someone scream at me than put me in this invisible straitjacket he seemed to be in.
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After a few listens, album is great. Title track is probably the worst song and it’s weird they released that as the second single.
Eileen, Gravelweed, True Believer standouts thus far.
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Listened to the album 4-5 times on repeat at work on Friday. Showed my wife a couple songs too. We’re seeing him this Wednesday in Oakland and not really sure what to expect. Will he have the full band doing a full repertoire of songs? Will it just be him and an acoustic guitar? Does he have an opener? Not sure, not sure i care either. Will be an enjoyable evening.
Takes on the album: it fulfilled what I consider to be a good album. 25% really good, 25-40% good, 35-50% skippable material. It accomplished a sound that I enjoyed. Slow, acoustical, and felt genuine. Not sure I care too much about or to comment the personal life stuff.
Was the album great? Probably not, but I’ll throw 3-4 songs onto an existing playlist and enjoy listening.
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