[Shuffle 32] She unfolds forever
By The Way, I Forgive You, Brandi Carlile
Patty Griffin, Patty Griffin
Song for Our Daughter, Laura Marling
Time (The Revelator), Gillian Welch
Court and Spark, Joni Mitchell
Created early July, 2020 to recognize new releases from Patty, Laura: on mothers, on daughters, on self. A series of introspections that open vistas; the women who write their soul, and mine, and ours. I came to Brandi late, this album in particular. But it sits easily with the songs of my childhood, adolescence and adulthood now too. Somehow so fitting that it took Patty so long to give us a self-titled album: she's as bare as on Living with Ghosts, somehow more in her skin. Laura, too, ages so well. Time rolls on and they get richer, deeper, reveal more, unfolding always in new ways. Gill rolls and rolls and rolls, The Revelator. And Joni, The Originator, so delicate and powerful, shines laser-like. Somehow. Layers of truth, detail-color, wrapped up like presents and wounds, rolled like joints. To open, to heal and to inhale, take into us and make our own: histories blending, shaping our memories with theirs, filling in theirs with mine, billowing. Fleetingly, song reaches inside of us, becomes inner-voices, someone else's heart in our heads, hymns that settle me to sleep: lessons I've always known, but must hear and repeat to remember.
Heard this go’round: July 25, 2021
Guitar like sitar, opening ever-outward, maturing with groove and slide: sure signs of freedom. "I wanna...live free," wait for me. I'll arrive, plaintive and prepared. "You crossed my mind, but it didn't change." Flair, singularity; "she don't want no one to know," oh? No, she never has, may never, sliding secrets between her fingers curling and uncurling, pressing and dancing across our spines, playing us to sleep. Calling to "the only other lonely soul in this place," some riff on "stay with him if you can, but be prepared to bleed," burning in our beds. Raspy exhaustion, bruises half-healed, seeking peace. I am yours. Inevitable tears: ships out on the ocean, boats and dinghies, sailing forever south. "Here I am!" Voices that rise-fall, whistle-strum, squeal-grumble, reach-clutch; sirens that wail and echo; whales locating each other with their groaning; vibrations pushing through deep water.
Bluebeard
Free Man in Paris
Dear Someone
Hope We Meet Again
Mama's Worried
Party Of One
What Now
Harder To Forgive
Held Down
a way to listen