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It took me a while to come up with a concise phrase to describe
my general feeling about Sam Payne's Railroad Blessings album, but
I managed to do it - a bizarro Dagwood sandwich. What the heck does
that mean, you ask? Well, I'm hungry right now, so that probably
has something to do with it, but to me Railroad Blessings has several
choice slices of meat and fixins on the outside, and a few pieces
of bread on the inside. Listening to the album several times, I
kept getting jazzed by the first few songs, then losing some interest
and attention for the next several, and then really enjoying the
last few tracks. Not to say there isn't some quality music in those
"bread" songs, but like your average slice of bread, those
seem to be more about nourishment and texture than being really
tasty.
So first, about those meat slices…
The album starts with a thick hunk of turkey, with Sam as the displaced
"Spaceman". Lyrically, this is somewhere in the neighborhood
of Bonzo Dog Band's "Urban Spaceman" and Bowie's "Space
Oddity", as Sam sings that "Galaxies are not enough without
a hand to hold. Make me know I'm not alone. Wake me up from orbit's
cold." Musically, this is very much in Sting/DMB territory
with its poking guitars and lazy funk rhythm, and though Sam's voice
isn't really like Sting's or Dave Mathew's (though at times sharing
a similar nasal twang), it is very unique in the same sense that
Sting's and Dave's voices are unique. I like how each time he gets
to the line, "'cause I'm a spaceman", it hits a different
note, and yet it still works in the sense of a memorable hook. It
keeps you guessing, while still keeping you attached, and that kind
of thing pops up now and then throughout the album.
The second slice of meat… I'll call this a big piece of very
hearty roast beef… is a wonderful song called "Ohio Son".
I'm not really up on the differences between the various male country
singers out there, so I can't compare Sam's singing and writing
on this song to any of them, but I can say that this would rank
right at the top among anything I've heard in the contemporary country
genre. The song starts with some gently swaying piano, which returns
warmly after each chorus. And what a chorus it is… lifting
and soaring and moving and memorable in the way the best ones are.
This is produced in a beautiful country setting, but it's such a
great song that I could picture it being a standard and produced
successfully for other genres and artists. And yet this version
would probably still be the best, as the dynamics are just exquisite.
Lines like "I was there on the morning he fell through the
gate from above" and "send a dancer to go get that hard
rail to fall" are an example of Sam's gift for expressing things
in a special way. This is the kind of song that makes you want to
cry and smile at the same time, so you're left with this strange
face that's frozen between smiling and crying. The perfect face
for your next driver's license picture… Between this and Border
Crossing's "Better", that's two CDs in a row with absolutely
incredible songs, and it's finding treasures like these that makes
it well worth the measly $50,000 a year that I'm paid to write these
reviews. (hardy har)
Before I get to the next song, I have to play "Ohio Son"
a few more times… Wow. What an amazing song. I just don't get
tired of hearing it. Okay, now I can go on…
Next up is a thinner but quite scrumptious piece of salami called
"Beneath One Star". This is an upbeat jazzy rock song,
with tremolo guitar leading into Sam identifying, or I suppose not
identifying, a nowhere man with a nobody face who you wouldn't know
if you saw him. As it goes on, you realize that he's talking about
something bigger, but it's the distinct pleasure of Payne's lyrics
that they paint images and work like poetry, successfully using
metaphor and allusion while still being conversational and singable.
The pre-chorus has some spider legged muted guitar, and then the
chorus hits with a horny (um, trumpets and such) jazz feel. The
middle break is wah-wah funk straight out of 70's blaxploitation
films.
"Good Night Coming Gently" is a sweet cut of tomato, lightly
salted, and giving some juiciness to the meat and bread surrounding
it. It's a very gentle sounding folk song right out of the Jim Croce
school of acoustic ballads, and Sam sings with the right lightness
and with beautiful phrasing, especially on the final word. Mmmm…
"Cost You One Kiss" begins the bread phase of the album
for me. It's nothing against the song… There's a lot I like
about it. It's got a decent backbeat groove and some nice harp-styled
guitar ringing, and there's a nice dynamic build through the story.
But for whatever reason, it just doesn't seem to have the same resonance
as the previous tracks for me.
The title track is a fresh piece of nourishing bread, with some
pleasant mandolin coloring, but lacking a strong hook or the memorable
phrasing of the meat songs.
"A Mother's Prayer" has a Celtic ballad feel to it, with
its folky fiddle intro. This would be more distinct on its own,
but it's essentially "Good Night Coming Gently" with a
faster beat.
"Everest" has a wonderful lyric comparing the journey
of a marriage enduring and succeeding to the challenge of climbing
a high mountain. Unfortunately the music is a little bit stale…
sort of just a slower version of "Spaceman"… and
even has the same kind of vocal scatting between the verses. A flanged
verse repeat towards the end is interesting, but just a curiosity
at that point. Still, it's a pleasure to hear these words at all.
Heck, just reading them from the CD liner is good enough.
Remember when we planned this trip? It's easy in the summertime…
not to hear the freezing wind. Easy not to fear this climb. Simple
in the living room not to hear the radio… crackle out of range
of home and lose the signal in the ice and snow. Good bread, and
in the context of the album's themes, in a way it's this bread that
holds the sandwich together. But to me it's still bread, musically,
compared to the meat of the CD.
"Brothers Road" is a nice sounding song, but again I hear
some of the same elements from previous tracks, like the long held
note at the end of the chorus phrase. So even after hearing this
several times, within the album's sequence it doesn't really stand
out much.
But thankfully that's the end of the bread in the middle. And as
can be expected with subjective things like this, I'm sure that
some will consider some of those bread songs to be meat, and perhaps
vice versa, but I can only describe what I'm eating with my own
taste buds. (And yes, I will be milking this sandwich parallel right
to the end!)
Next up is a luscious slice of cheese (I only mean that in the sense
of the sandwich metaphor, and not as if it were "cheesy")
called "The Last Time I Heard Something True". This is
one of those elegant and thoughtful piano folk ballads that strikes
through the first time you hear it, with great introspective lines
like "Though I tried to write songs about God in his starry
home, they sound like they're all about me" and "The world
that I thought I'd grow old in doesn't seem like the one where I
do". I might have liked to hear the bridge again, and the bridge
might actually have worked as the chorus, but then again, that might
have felt more obvious without feeling inevitable (as Leonard Bernstein
once described good music).
"The Big Time" is a story song that works better for me
than "Cost You One Kiss" does, even sans the nice dynamics
of "Cost You…". Oh wait, uh, the meat thing, yeah…
This song is a spicy piece of capacollo. How's that? Here Sam spins
an imaginative yarn about being carried away into some kind of metaphorical
underhanded plot, along the way meeting a woman whose love he prefers
to the prospects of wealth. I think I still prefer Peter Gabriel's
"Big Time", but this one is really quite a lot of fun.
Finally, the album (and sandwich) closes with a nice even slice
of chicken breast with "Daffodil", a dynamic piano ballad
reminiscent of the best of Sarah Maclachlan and Elton John, and
better than some of the similar things that Five for Fighting has
put out recently.
With Railroad Blessings, there should be no question that Sam Payne
is one of the best lyricists, performers and songwriters in LDS
music today. If he and Lisa Fraser
were to somehow fuse into a single person… ignoring all of
the controversial aspects of that… it would produce an absolute
monster of music that would crush buildings and make badly lip-synching
Japanese folks run like crazy. But it's too late to start another
metaphor like that, so I'll get back to the Dagwood… Here's
hoping that Sam can continue to serve up such delicious music, and
perhaps even produce an "all meat sandwich" someday. Then
again, bread is good for a sandwich and good for the soul, so if
he can just make his bread songs tastier, like focaccia bread or
the stuff the Taco Bell chalupa shells are made of (hey, I love
those!), then that would be fine, too. Okay, that does it…
Now, I'm really hungry. I think I'll have… a sandwich! Yeah!
****
(four stars out of five)
-----------------------
Eric
Endres
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