You’ve no doubt heard the phrase, “but for the grace of God, there go I.” For St. Louis native Adam Gaffney, sometimes God’s grace wasn’t around and so he went down a few harmful paths. He has a new album coming out next month, Product of Another Sad Song, and it’s centered around some of the outcomes of those decisions as well as a few curves life threw at him just to add a little variety.
Not surprisingly, given the subject matter, this is a country music record. Most of the songs are autobiographical, and the CD also includes 4 short, spoken word pieces about different events in his life. Stylistically, a lot of the cuts are honky-tonk twangers through and through. There’s the opener, Darlin‘, about his girlfriend at the time, now fiancee. Nomad references his years as an itinerant musician in the Southeast before he moved back to St. Louis. Several numbers give a nod to his struggles with alcoholism, like Lay Me Down where “if drinking don’t kill me her memory will.”
All the lyrics about alcohol’s grip on him and the musical foundation of pedal steel and boom-chucka rhythm section serve to call attention to the title track. It’s an observation of the bender he went on whereupon awakening the next day he realized he had to seek help, and that was day one of his now-several-years sobriety. With lines like “Somehow I know everyone here / Even the nights when I can’t see clear,” he admits it was a lifestyle, not just a single bad night. Unlike the rest of the album, it’s mostly just Gaffney and his guitar. The band comes in later in the song, but with a respectful subtlety. We’re so pleased to be able to share the song premiere of that life-changing event with you. Here is Product of Another Sad Song.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.