Somewhere in the information that I dug up on Meatyard, it says something about how “Leonard Cohen would sound if he had a country band”. There are all kinds of implications in that statement, like future greatness, cult following, and even that somehow nothing Cohen does is country. I don’t subscribe to much of that, but I will say there’s more than a nugget of truth there. My rough notes after listening to Meatyard’s sophomore effort, Sweet Old Green Life, for the first time were “Leonard Cohen, with Margo Timmins on background vocal, singing Tom Waits, playing slide guitar”.
Let me break that down a little for you. There’s a melancholy feel to many of the songs on the album. But it’s not overpowering, and although it’s a frequent undertone it doesn’t lead you into that crying-in-my-beer place. Take the first song on the record, Hats On the Five. It creates this sense of foreboding with the cello playing of Molly Hansen, who’s the female vocalist of the band. But it’s actually kind of a fun song about paranoia or obsessiveness ala Adrian Monk and wondering if you left the stove on. There’s also Hard Times, with it’s Irish lilt. Or Davenport Street, that also has a bit of Celtic to it, albeit with a Dire Straits sound.
This overall project keeps its balance well with some decidedly pop sounding tunes. Hang With You, for instance, comes on like a Traveling Wilburys tune. Let It Be Me has a Jayhawks feel. And you can’t pass up Sweet Miss McGillicuddy with its indie kind of take on a much appreciated teacher. My favorite song of the disc is maybe Got A River, where the drowning metaphor can be applied to anything you can’t resist.
Sweet Old Green Life has a lot of texture to it. There’s a musical sound, with the cello addition to a normal Americana roster of instruments, that’s at once both familiar and unique. The lyrics and vocals reward you with hooks that are easy to catch and yet offer the occasional surprise, like “I dreamed last night I was in love again: what a fright” from I Like You Good. And the vocals of lead singer Josh Welsh and Molly Hansen intertwine beautifully. The resulting effort is well worth checking out.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.