Everything I took from you and lost
This is music for the fully human. It's good enough to hurt.
Take me away
carry me like a dove.
Take me away
carry me like a dove.
Love me like you're lying
Let me feel you near
Remember me for trying
And excuse me while I disappear
The rest of "Scar" is marvelous, but doesn't prepare you for his extraordinary follow-up, Tiny Voices. The cover bears a sepia-toned photo of proud, tawdry circus clowns and the songs present a catalog of first person narratives evoking a world full of them--us. The music turns toward the jazzy. The mix suggests semi-omniscient instruments bubbling up from the underworld like a ghostly Greek chorus. Henry is a spectacular melodist. His song-craft skills are unsurpassed and he can cement melody to lyrics for songs strong enough to hit you like bricks. It is beauty and loneliness, love and want to the point where you're begging, just like one of his characters, "please don't speak another truth out loud, Whatever else you do."
The album Civilians follows in the same vein, but with less emphasis on character. The jazzy, bluesy feel remains with a lessening of musical atmospherics, but no loss of breadth. And there is a song here that is simply magisterial. Called "Our Song," it's the story of a man who believes he sees Willie Mays in Home Depot, and if we were a thinking people, it would become our national anthem.
I saw Willie Mays
At a Scottsdale Home Depot,
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