katmar's Full Review: Unglamorous * by Lori McKenna
Lori McKenna is one of the most gifted singer-songwriters that I have ever had the pleasure of hearing.
Her 2007 release Unglamorous has set a record for me for length of time in my heavy rotation.
If you haven't heard this yet, you should treat yourself.
A Bit Of Background
Lori McKenna is a mother of five, with the kids ranging in age from three to seventeen. She's from Stoughton, Massachusetts, has been married for 18 years to a man she's known since the third grade. (Gene's a plumber for the local gas company.)
Lori started writing young, and writing honest, because she thought no one else would ever hear her music.
After going to open mic nights in the Boston area, however, and getting a lot of attention, Lori was signed to a record deal, and in 1998, released Paper Wings And Halo.
It was hailed by the Boston Globe as one of the Top Ten albums of the year.
Lori released three more albums, all to critical acclaim, and she developed quite a following, being known as "the singing mom".
Everything Changed
In 2005, Lori McKenna's world would change.
Faith Hill was in the studio, and had just completed recording her latest studio album. At around the same time, a friend of Lori's presented Lori's tapes to Faith's publishing company.
Faith fell in love, and went back into the studio, and added three of Lori's songs, including what would be the title song, for Faith's new album Fireflies.
Faith appeared on Oprah and brought Lori along with her. The housewife from Massachusetts was about to receive her proper due, and it couldn't have happened to a more deserving person.
Lori was signed to Warner Brothers Nashville, and Tim McGraw and his longtime producer Byron Gallimore took on the task of producing it. (Tim even recorded Lori's song I'm Workin' for his studio album Let It Go.)
The Record
First of all, if you go to YouTube, there's a ten-minute video where they talk to Lori McKenna and give you a feel for her life, her loves, her kids, her songs, and you can't help falling in love with her.
This is not a woman who had ever ached to be famous. She was happy with her life. She adores her kids and her husband. And singing on the side was a cool gig she enjoyed having.
If that doesn't make her special enough, Faith Hill said the following:
"I don't remember ever being impacted by a songwriter the way I was with her. Her writing is masterful, with a pureness that is completely unaffected. The songs are such a great combination of depth and realness... there's just this indescribable collision of innocence and honesty in her writing."
I couldn't have said it better.
The CD opens with one of her most musically urgent songs to date, I Know You.
Opening with a guitar chord, and a note that's stretched to its end, the song immediately has a haunting feel. When the vocals start, she sounds a bit like Patty Griffin, with a touch of Bonnie Raitt.
In a sometimes searing ode to her husband, and the realness of a commitment that has lasted nearly two decades, the song is brutal in its truths, but somehow she makes that comforting, because in every single flaw, there's the constancy of knowing she's not leaving.
I know that you feel bad
For every bad thing that you do
You got a scar on your right cheek
And the fear of God embedded in you
Your mother had a wooden spoon
And a shamrock tattoo, baby I know you...
Exceptional.
Unglamorous is more the tribute to her family, and how their blessings have been what most of us would see as struggles.
This song kind of rings out musically as a midtempo wind that cools your face and makes you smile.
How wonderful - crowded dinners at the kitchen table
How beautiful - one TV set, no cable
No frills, no fuss, perfectly us... unglamorous
This song makes me hope, and believe in the goodness of people again, how "wonderful" is that?
Your Next Lover took quite awhile to grow on me, but I have to admit it's now one of my favorites, hands down.
Accompanied by an acoustic guitar, the woman in the song knows that her boyfriend is ready to leave, and she already knows the woman he's about to leave her for. But the irony of the song is that she really truly loves him, and if she can't make him happy, that's okay.
In her upper, passionate register, she sings:
Well I hope she can... fix you...
I hope she's someone... who would never let you down
I hope she reminds you... nothing of me
And as crazy, as crazy as it sounds I hope she's... beautiful...
There is something so beautiful about realizing the truth and being able to say "not only do I want you to go on, but I want you to be happy" that it again reinforces my belief in true goodness. Shouldn't that be what we all want for those we love but perhaps don't want anymore? Yes, yes, yes. Amazing song.
I'm Not Crazy is not quite ballad, and not quite midtempo, but another easy on the ears melody. This one's about being a bit crazy in love (I'm wide awake and you're still my dream), but also that silent language you develop as you grow together.
There's a dull sweetness in this life of ours
Pretty as graffiti
And I'm dancing without any music on
But you're the only one who sees me
How nice to be known that well, yes?
Falter is a piano-based ballad of sorts about the weird kid in school that everyone talked about but never took the time to know. As an adult, you see him again, and he's the new town bum. It sounds trite, but McKenna goes into such detail about what his life was like as she remembers it, to the depths of remorse as an adult over never reaching out to him, that it works. It's her voice. Her sincerity. She's not selling cheap sentiment here, this bothers her.
And when my kids ask me about him
What will I say?
What will I say?
It takes skill to pull this off, and she does so with great compassion.
Witness To Your Life starts out with just her voice, so it takes you in right away. Getting married at 19, and already pregnant, the odds are rarely in your favor. But this song about the wedding, and the years that came after, makes you believe sometimes it works out like it should.
Up the road your car comes into view
And from our front lawn I just smile at you
Another day I thank the Lord that you
Took the right road home
If you're in a long-term relationship, you'll appreciate this song, and if you defied the odds like she and Gene did, it could be your mantra.
Drinkin' Problem is quite special, and the most "country" song on here. Ms. McKenna is joined by Mr. Tim McGraw on harmony, and their voices not only blend beautifully, but his voice gives added authenticity to the subject matter.
A sober ode to a non-sober spouse, this one is an unflinching look at what that can do to a marriage.
No, I never touch the stuff
But honey, I'll tell you what
You can't count all the ways it touches me
Baby you and me, we need to work this out
We need to talk about our problems, and we got 'em
I'll go first -- I've got a drinkin' problem
Classic.
How To Survive starts with an acoustic guitar and an ominous feel, and things aren't going well at all in this relationship.
You knocked those pictures
Right off the wall
I slammed the bathroom door so hard
It doesn't close right at all
Last week we broke my mother's favorite serving plate
All just casualties of a love that's lost its way
Well, you and me, baby, don't even know how to fight
We don't know nothin' about nothin'
Except how to survive
And another great line that I relate to so well:
And talking might make it better
But what if it makes it worse?
Trust me, it never makes it worse, but it's sure hard to get there.
Written Permission is a hoot. Pretty quick tempo and a solid backbeat, she's had it, and she's out of there.
I've been fighting for you
For most of my life
I fought as a girlfriend, I fought as a wife
Oh, prisoners they say, are no one to love
I am throwing in the towel
I am taking off these gloves
'Cause I have laid down my guns and ammunition
You can go now, you can go now, you can leave now
This is my written permission
Well-done for a crazy woman!
Confetti, on the other hand, loses the anger and focuses on the vulnerability and betrayal. Starting off a little slower, the song builds in intensity, and these words are the ones that get me:
Isn't it a crying shame
That nothing ever stays the same
I can't fit into that wedding dress
Or be 23 again
But you're looking at me now
Like you don't know who I am
And what's that feel like?
Like something in me died.
And speaking of dying...
We have Leaving This Life.
Lori's mom passed away when she only six years old (the song makes it sound like seven, but Lori says six in interviews), and Lori has lived her life regretting the fact that she doesn't remember the small things, or even what she looked like. She said she felt sorry for herself for so long, and then realized as she held her kids, how hard it must have been for her mother to know she was dying, and would never get to hold them again.
The song is acoustic guitar and piano, and Lori's voice singing simply but oh so painfully.
I am six years old in the back of my mother's car
And I will be seven in December
She will be gone by the beginning of next spring
And I will be left to remember... to remember
She's left with that reflection
Of me at six years old
And I have her eyes in the mirror
Well, she and I we are defined
By what we have lost
Don't you wonder whose loss is dearer... is dearer
'Cause she doesn't know what my voice sounds like
She doesn't know what my skin feels like
I only know what it might feel like
When a mother holds her daughter
When that mother knows she's leaving this life
There are no words for this one.
Overall
Exceptional:
I Know You (Lori McKenna)
Your Next Lover (Lori McKenna)
Drinkin' Problem (Lori McKenna/Mark D. Sanders)
How To Survive (Lori McKenna/Liz Rose)
Leaving This Life (Lori McKenna/Mark D. Sanders)
Excellent:
Unglamorous (Lori McKenna/Liz Rose)
I'm Not Crazy Lori McKenna)
Falter (Lori McKenna)
Witness To Your Life (Lori McKenna)
Confetti (Lori McKenna/Fred Wilhelm)
Written Permission (Lori McKenna)
*******
Lori McKenna is a humble, supremely gifted woman. I found her on Oprah, and bought Bittertown because this one had not yet been released. But her voice was a bit too harsh for me, even though I loved the songs.
What McGraw and Gallimore have done is given her the proper recording environment, and captured her voice as it should have been captured from day one.
I was going to say at the beginning of the review that Lori McKenna got lucky when Faith Hill found her. But she didn't. Faith Hill got lucky. Lori's songs are arguably the best three songs Faith Hill has ever recorded on one record, and Fireflies gave Faith a lot of airplay she hadn't received in awhile.
Maybe they both got lucky. But most of all, WE got lucky, because we now have Lori McKenna to listen to in all of her real-life splendor.
If you're a fan of Patti Griffin, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Rosanne Cash, and any thoughtful, brilliant songwriter, you should love Lori McKenna. And if you have a minute, go to YouTube and check out How Romantic Is That, an as yet unrecorded song that Lori is doing on tour.
She will get in your heart and never leave.
Recommended:
Yes
Great Music to Play While: Getting ready to go out
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