My bus
broke down this morning and I had to walk to work. It’s funny, I never thought
to mention it to anyone since I first arrived at work. The truth is, it didn’t
feel like a big deal at the time and it doesn’t now. It helped that it wasn’t
raining, wasn’t terribly cold and I had an amazing album to keep me company. Let’s
expound on that last item, since this is a music review blog and not a weather
report.
Disc 1197 is…The Waking Hour
Artist: David
Francey
Year of Release: 2004
What’s up with the Cover? David enjoys a cup of coffee in
the early morning sun. Simple but thoughtful, just like this record.
How I Came To Know It: I read about him in a folk music
magazine and decided to check him out. I liked him a lot.
How It Stacks Up: I already owned seven David Francey albums
when I reviewed my first in May. I am now up to 10. I’ve bought his albums with
such gleeful abandon I have no idea which ones are the best for sure, but I
suspect “Waking Hour” will do well when the dust settles. It is in a dead heat
with “Skating Rink” (reviewed back at Disc 1143). Depending on how I feel
at the moment I would rank them 2-3, but in exactly what order is hard to say.
Today I’ll put “The Waking Hour” just behind, but tomorrow I’ll put it just
ahead. It is that close.
Ratings: 4 stars
On “The Waking Hour”
David Francey takes his ability to observe everyday details and makes them
extraordinary, and takes universal experiences and makes them intensely
personal. In short, he is a born poet.
To listen to a David Francey
album is to walk through an ordinary day and feel like you are seeing it in
colour for the first time. On “The Waking Hour” we get to wake up with Francey,
sometimes experience his existential (often romantic) doubt and sometimes just
explore the dangers that lurk in the morning news broadcast. Whatever you are
doing, it feels more important and universal. I do a fair bit of existential
musing myself, and hearing a record like this was a reminder that inspiration
for art is all around us.
Sometimes the songs
take a highly personal bent, such as on the title track. The song has a sublime
bit of finger picking from guitarist Kieran Kane that is favourably reminiscent
of Simon and Garfunkel’s “April Come She
Will”. It also has a touching mix of sorrow and innocence, made more
poignant by mixing in old nursery rhyme lines (“I am Wednesday’s child of woe/I try not to be ungrateful”) paired with
adult admissions of anger and darkness (“But
I was born at midnight’s black/With a heart that can be hateful.”). With
each line ending with a chorus of quiet desperation, as Francey observes:
“And the heart that’s breaking
Never makes a sound.”
‘nuff said.
OK, I’ve wiped my
tears and I’m moving on. There are plenty of other songs of similar ilk on the
record, but Francey also explores America in all its many facets. Francey is
Scottish by birth (with accent to prove it) and Canadian by choice. Many songs
on “The Waking Hour” explore the United States with a wide-eyed innocence of an
artist determined to see the world, as Akira Kurosawa might say, “with eyes
unclouded by hate”. These songs will give you a serious case of the feels.
“Highway 95” has Francey traveling through the Carolinas, filled
with the wonder of the beauty of it all and a slightly unsettled feeling of
knowing that while beautiful, this place is not home.
The album holds a lot
of forgiveness. “Morning Train” is an
appeal for unity and tolerance, even as “Fourth
of July” is a recognition that in the wake of 9/11 that America is filled
with grief and anger. Francey doesn’t judge one way or another, and when he
does you can tell it is only part of the process of him trying to better understand.
It is an approach that will be put hard to the test on the album’s best song.
That would be “Wishing Well,” where Francey recounts
what it was like for him to wake to the morning news announcing that the
Oklahoma Bomber had been executed. The song is a mix of Francey struggling with
trying to feel compassion for someone guilty of such a monstrous act:
“I should feel compassion, I know I should
I don’t know if his dying does any good
He was good as gone when the building fell
When they ran out of wishes at the wishing well.”
And the stark imagery
of death by lethal injection:
“Lying on his back, eyes open wide
And the prick of the needle and the silent slide
The Press lined up, with their stories to tell
How there’s no more wishes at the wishing well.”
The song has a
finality in its delivery that underscores how Francey sees the waste of it all.
It is a lament over one of the most terrible crimes in American history at the
moment the world focused all its attention on the killer one last time.
The record is more than
just great writing, however. Every musician is at the top of their game, providing
a gently rolling lilt that perfectly matches Francey’s effortless delivery. You
hang on every word, yes, but it is easier to do when the musicianship is so
free and easy.
Listening to “the
Waking Hour” I only had two regrets. First, that Francey got started on his
music career so late in life. Second, that it took me so damned long to find
him. I’m glad to be making up for lost time.
Best
tracks: The
Waking Hour, Highway 95, Ankle Tattoo, Wishing Well, Over You, Fourth of July
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