A Musical Wanderer in Search of Domestic Bliss: Paolo Nutini's "Sunny Side Up"
Written: Aug 11 '09 (Updated Aug 11 '09)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A surprisingly rich and stylistically diverse feat of songwriting.
Cons: His lack of irony and independence of studio gimmicks may, in fact, be offputting.
The Bottom Line: In which the author would settle down and marry Paolo himself, if only he could. (Paul and Paolo sittin' in a tree...)
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| plorentz's Full Review: Sunny Side Up * by Paolo Nutini |
To listen to Top 40 radio these days, one might be forgiven for worrying that the notion of the spare and earnest, organic, sweet and sunny love song has been lost to antiquity (and Jason Mraz). But on Sunny Side Up, his second full-length album (and follow-up to 2006’s lovely and promising These Streets) , the just-barely-twentysomething Scottish singer-songwriter Paolo Nutini does much to recover not only this seemin’ly lost art form, but also the practically Medieval notion of the motley romantic troubadour, wandering the countryside and melting the tender hearts of all the girls (and many of the boys) he meets, armed with little more than his guitar, his harmonica, a sly wit, a sharp, lusty eye, an exquisitely vulnerable heart, and a poetic, raspy tenor that belies his relative youth and alternately recalls Rod Stewart, Steve Forbert, and Labi Siffre.
But where such a troubadour might stereotypically be the kind of noncommittal wanderer-of-the-world with a girl in every port, all Dion-and-the-Belmonts-style, Nutini – as the album’s title and adorable “somewhere that’s green” cover art might suggest – wants nothing more than to settle down into a life as husband and father, working hard and living simply. As he says in “Simple Things”, a song seemingly tailor made for some long-forgotten star of the Grand Ole Opry stage, his “father is a wealthy, self-made man, but his wealth does not consist of riches or acres of land / instead, he has a family who are his biggest fans. That’s something that I one day hope to have.” And he’s eager and willing to work for it. In the fantastic ska-flavored opener, “10/10” (which gets help from the Roots’ ?uestlove and the Specials’ Rico Rodriguez), he proclaims that he wants to take things slow, to get dressed up and show his girl that he can be a model pupil, and get an ‘A’ in both the kitchen and the bedroom.
The album’s lead single “Candy” is a thwarted seduction of such palpable and delicious longing that it could set even the most stoic listener to swooning, Nutini making all sorts of sensual (and sweetly domestic) promises to the object of his lusty admiration – “darling, I’ll bathe your skin, I’ll even wash your clothes” - especially on the song’s ever-heightening coda where Nutini reassures us, backed up by what sounds like a legion of mariachi angels, “I’ll be there waiting for you”. And repeating that line over and over, he convinces us that he’ll wait as long as it takes. To hold out on the guy just feels cruel!
But while his heart may be set on domestic tranquility, he proves to be a serial monogamist when it comes to the music itself, diving headlong into one genre after another. “Pencil Full of Lead” is a hearty jump swing rave-up while “High Hopes” is a soulful, falsetto-tinged Appalachian (or Carribean?) folk song, all mandolins and harmonica; and “A Worried Man” borrows, wholesale, the chorus of a nearly 50-year-old Kingston Trio song. From the bouncy, swaggering ska (get a load of them horns!) of the opening track, he dips into Memphis soul on “Coming Up Easy”, with a Hammond organ line immediately reminiscent of Dan Penn, while he channels the ghost of Otis Redding on “No Other Way”, a song written from the road to woman he loves at home, delivered with a yearning so raw it sounds as if he’s had a premonition of his own untimely end, and he’s driven by a sense that he’ll never see her again.
Of course, such unabashed romance (heightened even further by a Scottish brogue that Nutini does nothing to disguise) is, admittedly old-fashioned and almost certainly comes as shocking to our AutoTune-ready ears. But Nutini’s earnest pleas and utterly romantic lack of irony are tempered by an understated sense of humor and a PG-rated naughty streak. More than anything Sunny Side Up is just a fun record that also happens to be deeply soulful, heartfelt and even subtly sexy.
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BECAUSE YOU NEED TO KNOW:
“Sunny Side Up” by Paolo Nutini
Atlantic Records
Released 6/2/2009
Produced by Paolo Nutini
40 min.
SONGS: 10/10 – Coming Up Easy – Growing Up Beside You – Candy – Tricks of the Trade – Pencil Full of Lead – No Other Way – High Hopes – Chamber Music – Simple Things –Worried Man – Keep Rolling
Recommended:
Yes
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plorentz
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Member: Paul Lorentz
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