This is the thread where I talk about this great album that I so dearly love, and you all stare at me blankly.
Hem -- from New York, pop-country in an alomst 60's tradition, with a voice up front that Lucinda Williams has dreams about. AMG reports they wanted to make a record "we could love the rest of our lives," and spent a year writing and recording it. Musically, it's a trip through Americana, all strings and pianos and twangly guitars and melodies that Jimmy Webb would be proud of. Lyrically, it's as simple as can be, and as deep. Some sample lyrics, track by track:
"When I Was Drinking": When I was drinking / when I was with you / and living it up when the rent was due / with nothing and no one to live up to...
I'll raise a glass now to you and me / to lift me high so that I can see / which of these blessings are killing me.
"Half Acre": I am holding half an acre / torn from a map a Michigan / and folded in this scrap of paper / is a land I grew up in.
Think of every town you've lived in / every room you lay your head / and what is it that you remember?
Do you carry every sad loss with you? / Every time your heart was broken?
"Leaving Me Here": I have been here before / and I know the way / But love seems sweeter and surer / In the light of day.
So as I rise I will reach for the heavens / I'll say no prayer / 'Cause tonight he brought me to heaven / and left me there.
"Idle (the rabbit song)": Gonna waste some time with you / Gonna let this world go / Keep my heart idle
Gonna waste my time with you / Gonna let this love go / Broken heart, idle.
That last one may be my favorite.
The lyrics are obvious, but somehow not. And that's to say nothing of the music. Nothing makes sense until you have heard these melodies. They're as accomplished as any I've heard, almost evoking the mood and theme of the songs on their own.
Look, just go buy this record, alright? Buy it and love it for the rest of your life, as I almost surely will. Or if you've heard it, talk about it.
― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Monday, 7 July 2003 05:54 (twenty-two years ago)
I downloaded it after you wrote about it at Analog Roam, listened to it once or twice, and filed it away. I barely remember anything about it. Oh wait! I remember thinking "Tarnation did this kind of thing so much better."
― Andrew Frye (paul cox), Monday, 7 July 2003 07:02 (twenty-two years ago)
Tarnation did a DIFFERENT kind of thing. Tarnation is a country-western type thing; Hem (for lack of a better descriptor) is a Cole Porter type of thing (tho I'd feel more secure about Kenan invoking Jimmy Webb if I knew anything he wrote outside of "MacArthur Park"). Both are sublime, of course (&, in my house, Hem's "The Sailor Song" trumps any & all Tarnation songs 9 times out of 10).
― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 7 July 2003 08:02 (twenty-two years ago)
it's a pretty album, but it's also almost painfully vanilla, don't you think? like eating white chocolate for six hours straight...
― Sean M (Sean M), Monday, 7 July 2003 10:55 (twenty-two years ago)