Rhett Miller – “Big Brown Eyes” (Live from the House of Blues)
Posted on | November 16, 2009 | 2 Comments
I shot Rhett Miller from the Old 97’s playing a few songs before his show on October 10th at the House of Blues in Dallas. The amiable front man was nearly too energetic for my camera frame, despite the fact that he was playing to an audience of one. Read Rhett’s 5 records that inspired him here
1. Rhett Miller is probably best known for three things — his boyish charm, his seemingly boundless energy onstage, and the ability to pack a song full of wit and heartbreak. That is never more apparent in his entire catalog than in “Big Brown Eyes”, a song so good that the Old 97’s recorded it twice on 1996’s Wreck Your Life and 1997’s Too Far To Care (which was covered in an earlier post). “Big Brown Eyes” is one of those rare occasions where a song is packed to the bursting point with metaphor and it actually works.
2. Miller starts by perfectly describing a situation of impending doom, as he tries to sell a potential lover on the fact that it is time to get out of town. From the “cherry” burning the edge of the paper, to quoting “Robert’s dad”, the intricate details make this whole thing human – as if you can see Rhett pleading with her to leave with him. After the apparent failure of that option, Miller turns inward to his “box of reds, and a pill or three”, eyes darting around the room to describe the depth of his loneliness. His self-aggrandizing continues, declaring that she “don’t want [him] anymore”, and asking himself “what did I expect?”
3. Rhett Miller does a killer job of inhabiting this song — every time it hits the chorus, you can easily envision him staring at the phone, waiting on it to ring. The now-classic line “you’ve made a big impression for a girl of your size” sums up everything he does best in a single line. Luckily for him, this song was just the beginning. He stated in an interview once that you have to write 100 bad songs before you get to the good stuff, and the evidence of his work ethic shows up even in this early material. Luckily for 97s fans, this trend of great songs has created a career for Miller and friends, and it shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
Rhett Miller – “Big Brown Eyes” (Live from the House of Blues)
Rhett Miller – “I Need to Know Where I Stand” (Live from the House of Blues)
Posted on | October 26, 2009 | 2 Comments
I shot Rhett Miller from the Old 97’s playing a few songs before his show on October 10th at the House of Blues in Dallas. The amiable front man was nearly too energetic for my camera frame, despite the fact that he was playing to an audience of one. Read Rhett’s 5 records that inspired him here
1. Kicking off with a flurry of alliteration, Miller tells the story of on-campus love that dissolves into a confusing is-it-or-isn’t-it relationship that “feels like paralysis”. Begging his lover to give him some sort of sign, Rhett jumps forward in time to find himself “killing at a comedy club in Hollywood”, where he runs into the same woman. His affections haven’t changed a bit, and neither has the steely facade of his crush, who tells him that she loves him, but refuses to hug him and leaves him grasping for straws of fidelity. The last setting puts the couple in the “kitchen of a cracker jack box” where Miller finds himself with a less corporeal version of his would-be lover. Blurring the line between real life and a dreamy illusion, he reaches for her as she fades away. With the ultimatum that “the world might end in a minute”, he makes one last ditch effort to solidify his life’s romantic work, apparently, to no avail.
2. Miller has said that his solo songs are usually numbers that don’t fit within the Old 97’s canon. This poppy tune is obviously less twangy than the 97’s normal style, but Miller sells it with an earnestness that follows him wherever he goes. That said, I wouldn’t mind hearing Murry Hammond’s high harmony on this track. Either way, Miller’s cheerfully endearing songs about love and the complete lack of it continue to evolve and inspire.
Rhett Miller – I Need To Know Where I Stand (Live from the House of Blues)
Throwback Thursday – Neko Case – “Guided By Wires”
Posted on | October 22, 2009 | 3 Comments
1. Neko Case, who swooped down out of Canada in 1997 with The Virginian, turned up the twang with her 2000 release Furnace Room Lullaby. “Guided By Wires”, the second track from this record, calls everyone who claims to be vintage country into question. With the combination of her arcing voice, a simple backing band, and lyrics that pledge allegiance to her heroes on the radio, Case put a dent in the side of the catchphrase “insurgent country”, approaching her work with an authentic sound that didn’t sound like a revival at all.
2. Paying tribute to the “voices that did comfort her”, Case relays a few life lessons she learned, noting that “even in my darkest recollection/ there was someone singing my life back to me”. Riding a loping beat that suggests the white lines of a highway flying by, Case speaks of her life being “made of short stories”, a concept she would explore further on Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. The refrain finds her admitting that she “owes much to the nameless and all the surrogates/ for those who were singing my life back to me.” Not only does Neko’s voice rattle around in a vintage echo chamber, the guitars chatter with a sound free of modern effects, and the whole track resonates with the sound of people playing music live in a room. The sound is possibly best described as not “vintage”, but “real”. With a stripped down sound that leaves her nothing to hide behind, Case’s lyrics are refreshingly simple and straightforward.
3. So much of our musical history is made up of the music we hear before we are old enough to put the record on ourselves. Rhett Miller spoke of his parents playing the Kingston Trio, and Danny Balis talked about his father playing Merle Haggard’s live records. Neko doesn’t get specific, but she doesn’t need to: the ghosts of Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, and Dusty Springfield live in her music. Though she would follow her muse further away from this sound with later records like Middle Cyclone, Case pays tribute to her heroes and writes herself into the history of country music with “Guided By Wires”, which may one day rush out of someone’s stereo and re-create the experience she describes.
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