Skip to main content

99. Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins - Rabbit Fur Coat (2006)

Attention female singers! Do you desire critical acclaim and a rabid fan base comprised almost exclusively of music geeks? If so, make a country soul record, and watch your dreams come true before your very eyes!

Jenny Lewis has been with us for awhile - first as a child actor, then as singer for Rilo Kiley - but she made the scene in a big way in 2004, both with Rilo Kiley's third album More Adventurous and her participation in Ben Gibbard's Postal Service project. She's sexy in a cute way, she writes her own songs, and she's a little more than likely to break your heart. She's the darling of indie boys and girls, and her debut solo album will likely cement that status.

It begins with a bit of strummed guitar and then an a capella burst of harmony, courtesy of the bill-sharing Watson Twins. The introductory piece is called Run Devil Run, and it's the first of many refrences to spirituality. The Big Guns mentions the afterlife, begs for mercy and asks "what have we done?". Rise Up With Fists!! gives us the chorus: "There but for the grace of God go I." In The Charging Sky Lewis says she's "taking up praying on Sunday nights" and wonders "but what if God's not there?" Born Secular includes multiple shout-outs to the man upstairs. Is Ms. Lewis reassessing her life?

Maybe, but it's also possible she feels guilty about something. The final song is called It Wasn't Me, and it's a sort of kin to Billy Joel's An Innocent Man. That is to say, they are both songs where the narrator sounds more interested in covincing themselves than anyone else.

Lewis also uses the record to tackle other issues. She revisits the quagmire of a fucked-up relationship in You Are What You Love. Like Portions For Foxes before it, we get some tart couplets about not being able to extricate yourself from a hairy situation, such as "I'm in love with illusion, so saw me in half / I'm in love with the trick, so pull another rabbit out your hat."

The other issue is her mother, who is the subject of the twisty title song. I'll let you interpret for yourself, but I'll just say I wouldn't want this song written about me, for a multitude of reasons. And even as personal and brutal as the song is, you also get a sense of understanding from Lewis, as though she dislikes in her mother the same things she dislikes in herself. Happy backs that up, when she sings "my mother never warned me about my own destructive tendencies." I guess that means the apple didn't fall far from the tree.

As for the sound of the songs, it's catchy and soulful, with a twangy aftertaste. The sticker on the front of the packaging compares the record to Dusty Springfield and Loretta Lynn. I've also heard Lucinda Williams as a reference point, but Lewis' songs are more catchy and less gritty than that, at least for the most part (Happy is one of the least happy songs I've ever heard). And because I am such a fan of harmony, I want to mention it one more time. It's just lovely. In fact, the "ahhh-ahhh" coda of Born Secular could go on about 5 minutes longer than it does and I wouldn't really mind.

The bottom line about this album is this: Jenny Lewis better have a disguise ready if she plans on making any visits to independant record stores. It will be for her own good.

Grade: A
Fave Song: Born Secular

Comments

Allen Lulu said…
Its a nice world where a 70 something country and western artist can put out one of the most listenable albums I've ever heard and within 21 months a 20 something indie/alt girl can put out a fresh version of, what basically amounts, to the same kind of album. Replete with the bleakness of a Silverlake youth.
Oh, did I mention that I loathe country? But between Van lear Rose, Rabbit Fur Coat and Georgia Hard, I may be converting.

Popular posts from this blog

12 by Matthew Sweet (2002 - 2021)

Sometimes a huge part of an artist's career has not been summarized. Case in point... Matthew Sweet has a couple of compliations out there, but neither of them cover the past couple of decades, a span that has seen him release 8 albums of original material and 3 albums of covers.  I followed Sweet's career religiously early on, with my ardor gradually diminishing after the magnificant one-two punch of In Reverse (1999) and The Thorns (2003) That's not to say he hasn't produced some great work since then, it's just that it requires bit of effort to pick out the gems. Here's my college try: (Two of these albums are not available on streaming servies, so here's a slightly modified version of the playlist on YouTube .) 1. "I Can't Remember" ( The Thorns , 2003) The Thorns was a rootsy, close-harmony early-aughts version of Crosby, Stills, and Nash, featuring Shawn Mullins (of "Lullaby" fame) and Pete Droge (of "If You Don't Lov

2022: The Album

Since 2003 I've made a mix of some of my favorite songs of the calendar year. Here's the cover art and track listing for the 2022 edition. 1. BODEGA - "Pillar on the Bridge of You" 2. Harry Styles - "Late Night Talking" 3. Vicious Vicious - "Evolution" 4. Hot Freaks - "Lovely" 5. Carly Rae Jepsen - "The Loneliest Time" 6. Tears for Fears - "End of Night" 7. Spoon - "Wild" 8. Death Cab for Cutie - "Here to Forever" 9. Citrine and GUKKO - "Feel Better" 10. Rhett Miller - "Fascination" 11. Broken Bells - "Fade Away" 12. Leah Marlene - "Flowers" 13. Robbie Williams - "The World and Her Mother" 14. Jimmy Eat World - "Something Loud" (acoustic version) 15. Sloan - "Dream It All Over Again" If you have Amazon Unlimited, you can listen at this link . 

Weezer: SZNZ Abbreviated

One of the most oldest and most enticing thought exercises in pop music is: What if (artist) had released the best songs from (double album) as a single disc instead?  Pre-Internet, folks used their cassette decks to create their own truncated versions of likes of The Beatles'  White Album ("Revolution 9" has to go, for sure) and Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (sorry, "Jamaica Jerk-Off"), some out of artistic vision, others because the tape just wasn't long enough to hold all the songs. Now, with mp3s and streaming, we have the ability to curate everything for ourselves, which means even a single album could be reduced to an EP of your faves, with the shuffle feature making it so the order doesn't even have to be the same every time. Here's where I could detour into a healthy digression about the negative consequences of that total freedom, but I'll resist the temptation. Our good friends Weezer - who are not typically known for rest