This is a standing room show.The New OutlawsListen: For some of us, maybe even most of us, it’s been a rough year. As I write these words,it’s mid-November in Chicago, the warmest autumn on record, and the bad news keepscoming. Family and animals and homes washed away in the rural south. A wildfire seasonthat never ends. Too much water in some places, not enough in others. Back in my homestate of Texas, pregnant people, some barely out of childhood, are dying for lack of medicalcare. And Lord have mercy if you, or someone you love, is an undocumented immigrant, orif you’re trans, queer, poor, Black, and the list goes on (and on and on)...
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This is a standing room show.The New OutlawsListen: For some of us, maybe even most of us, it’s been a rough year. As I write these words,it’s mid-November in Chicago, the warmest autumn on record, and the bad news keepscoming. Family and animals and homes washed away in the rural south. A wildfire seasonthat never ends. Too much water in some places, not enough in others. Back in my homestate of Texas, pregnant people, some barely out of childhood, are dying for lack of medicalcare. And Lord have mercy if you, or someone you love, is an undocumented immigrant, orif you’re trans, queer, poor, Black, and the list goes on (and on and on). Sometimes it feelslike the whole damned world has made up its mind to destroy itself once and for all. So Ifeel it in my bones when Julien Baker sings, That it can’t get much worse depends on whoyou’re askin. Maybe you feel it, too, and maybe you could use the good company of thismuch-anticipated country album by critically acclaimed artists Julien Baker & TORRES (akaMackenzie Scott).Send A Prayer My Way has been in the works for years. Imagine two young musiciansplaying their first show together at Lincoln Hall, a much-loved venue here in Chicago. It’sJanuary 15, 2016, and bone chillingly cold outside, especially for a couple of southerners.When the show is over and they’re shooting the shit, one singer says to the other, “Weshould make a country album.” This is the origin story, the stuff of legend in the world ofcountry music, and the beginning of a collaboration between two artists already admiredfor their spare, elegant lyrics as well as the courage to share their struggles with those wholove their music. It’s also the beginning of creating a work that, like the most enduringcountry albums, sustains and inspires, reminding both singer and listener that not one of usis ever totally alone in this world, that music is a steady companion. Why are you weeping?Whom are you seeking,” they sing in “No Desert Flower.” I can take more than a little rain/If the going’s tough I will not cower/And all the passing years won’t wash me away.I’ll lay my cards on the table from the get-go: Send A Prayer My Way is a damn fine country album, written and sung in the best of the outlaw tradition—defiant, subversive, working class, and determined to wrestle not only with addiction, regret and bad decisions, but alsowith oppressive systems of power. (In the best outlaw country, The Law is no friend ofyours, and neither is The Man; in TORRES and Baker’s music, neither are religiousblowhards or mothers who can’t stomach their daughter’s sexuality.) These are songs aboutwrapping up a long shift and driving home bone tired, just hoping for a little weed and aquiet place to put your feet up; or falling off the wagon (again) and wondering if this time itwill finally drag you under the wheels; or thinking that bad decisions are the only decisionsyou know how to make. If you ask how I’ve been doing I won’t lie/More than half the time I’monly skatin by/Waiting for the ice to melt beneath me, Baker sings in the opening song “Dirt,”and a few lines later, this beauty: Spend your whole life getting clean/Just to wind up in thedirt.Mercifully, this is only the beginning of the stories TORRES and Baker are determined totell. Because these are also songs about radical empathy and second chances, and thirdchances, and while there’s plenty of struggle and regret in here, there’s also humor anddefiance. In my book there’s no such thing as guilty pleasure/As long as your pleasure’s notunkind, TORRES sings in “The Only Marble I’ve Got Left.” On “Tuesday,” she turns her gazebackward, remembering a love affair long in the rearview mirror, and the harm done whenpassion meets shame. And if I could only go back in time/I’d rewrite our whole story…Andnow I know that your shame was not mine/And I am perfect in my Lord’s eyes. There is clarityin time’s passage, at least sometimes, and whatever grace some of us can muster oftencomes from taking the irreverent, and much funnier, low road. And in this way, Send aPrayer My Way reminds me of Lucinda Williams’s Happy Woman Blues (1980), or LorettaLynn singing about The Pill in 1975. And just like those badass women, Baker and TORRESaren’t asking for anybody’s tolerance, or forgiveness, and they sure as shit aren’t asking forpermission.And I’m here for every word of it. Because some of us sinners (and I mean that as acompliment of the highest order)—the criminals and cheaters among us, the addicts andlonely-hearted, those of us who, in the words of that brilliant and mad old outlaw, TownesVan Zandt, wear your skin like iron, your breath as hard as kerosene—were nursing our ownprivate heartaches long before the world started its most recent long skid. Some of us havelearned the hard way that leaning on poetry, stories, and songs ain’t a bad way to save yourown life.So listen: Whatever your story—if you’ve been staying up late and sleeping in, dodging callsfrom old friends and wondering how many times you can break your own heart throughevery fault of your own; if you’ve been missing work, or skipping school, or blowing pastdeadlines like they’re four-way stop signs on the highway to hell; and most especially, ifyou’re feeling afraid for your life, or the lives of those you hold most dear—I hope you willfind some comfort in these twelve songs. I hope you will put a little sugar in the tank and letthese two singers love you all the way to hell and back. Because here’s the thing about goingto hell and back: You came back.Elizabeth WetmoreAuthor of Valentine
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