reading n putter’n aboot on a sunday morn
Been awake a few hours now, sipping coffee and listening to music. It’s always a good day when you can listen to at least one album all the way through. So far this morning there’s been half of Radiohead’s In Rainbows, all of Semisonic’s Great Divide and now I’m onto Son Volt.
The Search, or if on vinyl, On Chant & Strum. I’ve bumped a few of the slower tempo tracks and dropped in Caryatid Easy, Big Sur, and Flow. I finding myself reminded several times by the lyrics that this is a populist band, and despite what some could decry as lyrical obliqueness, Jay Farrar exudes a deep respect for the working man.
On tracks like the titular The Search, Automatic Society, Satellite, and Methamphetamine, there are multiple references to populist themes. Woven through the fabric of these tracks, and the immediate preceding album Okemah and the Melody of Riot is a Blue State Pride tracklist just waiting to be pounded into a battle shield and given to the people.
Or so I’d like to think, on this Sunday morning…