![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Mar. 15th, 2013 12:16 pmJust a note to say that a lot of the album I can take or leave, but "Joy to You Baby" is quite possibly Josh Ritter's best song since "Kathleen".
Ritter has long been a favorite musician- one of few whose concert appearances I've sought multiple times. His music sounds like the great folk rockers of the '60s and '70s, but his themes feel present, in the moment, without anything that reeks of nostalgia. (I've written before that his music lives between two poles- Dylan and Springsteen- and how enjoyable I find his music depends on how he negotiates the balance)
In "Kathleen", he sings about finding meaning in a one-night stand, and he sings with such brightness and earnestness and yet colors it with a pragmatism born of heartbreak. "All the other girls here are stars/ You are the Northern Lights," he opens with, the voice of a passionate lover driven to poetry. It is an astonishingly simple, stark, and beautiful metaphor. But then he softens it with reality, later: "I know you are waiting, and I know that it is not for me." Kathleen is a song about the difference between love and lust, about the difference between temporary human connections and the permanent connection that most of us are eternally questing for. But it's mostly just a song about taking happiness where you can find it and leaving the worrying for later. It's a song I can listen to in any mood. Its questions about our place in the world are so basic and pure.
I don't know that I would say that "Joy To You Baby" is as good a song. It is lyrically and musically less complicated, even more stripped down to our human essence. It's the capper of an album, "The Beast in Its Tracks", which has been touted everywhere as Ritter's divorce album. Most of the album tells stories of heartbreak. Ritter doubts his relationships, doubts for his future. He casts blame on his ex-wife in some songs, casts blame on himself in others, mourns in still others.
And then he tops it off with "Joy To You Baby", which at its first level is just blissed out, as if he has worn out his anger and his frustration and his doubts and finally emerged to a place of peace. "Joy to the city/ Joy to the streets /And joy to you baby, wherever you sleep" And that little zinger at the end, that "wherever you sleep", at first I thought was just minor, almost resigned irony, but the more I listen to it the more I hear its jagged edges showing. The frustration buried beneath the acceptance. If "Kathleen" is a song that finds meaning in a meaningless one-night stand, "Joy to You Baby" might be a song that rejects the meaning in joy, that can't quite find a way to forgive her for leaving but is damned good at faking it.
But then I listen to it again, "Joy to the many/ And joy to the few /And joy to you baby /Joy to me too." and I don't hear it as an affirmation either positive or negative. Instead I hear it as a prayer.
Joy to You Baby by Josh Ritter
Ritter has long been a favorite musician- one of few whose concert appearances I've sought multiple times. His music sounds like the great folk rockers of the '60s and '70s, but his themes feel present, in the moment, without anything that reeks of nostalgia. (I've written before that his music lives between two poles- Dylan and Springsteen- and how enjoyable I find his music depends on how he negotiates the balance)
In "Kathleen", he sings about finding meaning in a one-night stand, and he sings with such brightness and earnestness and yet colors it with a pragmatism born of heartbreak. "All the other girls here are stars/ You are the Northern Lights," he opens with, the voice of a passionate lover driven to poetry. It is an astonishingly simple, stark, and beautiful metaphor. But then he softens it with reality, later: "I know you are waiting, and I know that it is not for me." Kathleen is a song about the difference between love and lust, about the difference between temporary human connections and the permanent connection that most of us are eternally questing for. But it's mostly just a song about taking happiness where you can find it and leaving the worrying for later. It's a song I can listen to in any mood. Its questions about our place in the world are so basic and pure.
I don't know that I would say that "Joy To You Baby" is as good a song. It is lyrically and musically less complicated, even more stripped down to our human essence. It's the capper of an album, "The Beast in Its Tracks", which has been touted everywhere as Ritter's divorce album. Most of the album tells stories of heartbreak. Ritter doubts his relationships, doubts for his future. He casts blame on his ex-wife in some songs, casts blame on himself in others, mourns in still others.
And then he tops it off with "Joy To You Baby", which at its first level is just blissed out, as if he has worn out his anger and his frustration and his doubts and finally emerged to a place of peace. "Joy to the city/ Joy to the streets /And joy to you baby, wherever you sleep" And that little zinger at the end, that "wherever you sleep", at first I thought was just minor, almost resigned irony, but the more I listen to it the more I hear its jagged edges showing. The frustration buried beneath the acceptance. If "Kathleen" is a song that finds meaning in a meaningless one-night stand, "Joy to You Baby" might be a song that rejects the meaning in joy, that can't quite find a way to forgive her for leaving but is damned good at faking it.
But then I listen to it again, "Joy to the many/ And joy to the few /And joy to you baby /Joy to me too." and I don't hear it as an affirmation either positive or negative. Instead I hear it as a prayer.
Joy to You Baby by Josh Ritter