CD Odyssey Disc 1515: Billy Bragg

Rolling this album was a confluence of coincidence. My friend Andrew had just been texting me about how much he was enjoying early Billy Bragg AND Bragg released his first album in eight years just this week. I haven’t heard that new one yet (although I’m optimistic).

Disc 1515 is….  Talking with the Taxman About Poetry

Artist: Billy Bragg

Year of Release: 1986

What’s up with the Cover? My album is a remastered version where they’ve altered the cover, but I’ve gone with the original because I spent last night having steak and beers. As a result I’m feeling a little traditionalist this morning.

The cartoon of a city eats money, or maybe city makes money and the cartoon creature living under it eats some of it? If my degree was in Economics instead of English I might be able to figure it out. Whatever is going on, the creature seems decidedly unfriendly and looks to be in need of a timeout.

This cover has other fun details, including a second smaller cartoon in one corner, a printed price (4.49 British pounds, which was a lot less than I paid), and the admission that the record was “difficult”.

How I Came To Know It: I did not know this record when it came out, but instead discovered it several years ago while digging through Bragg’s back catalogue.

How It Stacks Up: I have nine Billy Bragg albums. Of those, there are about four that are all equally good, but if I have to pick (and I do) I’ll put “Talking with the Taxman” at #1.

Ratings: 4 stars

On his third studio album Billy Bragg completes his transition from street busker to recording artist, with brilliant results.

Bragg’s first two records heavily evoke a street-performer, relying on his bawling vocals and big guitar sound. “Talking with the Taxman about Poetry” (hereafter referred to as ‘Taxman’) incorporates all the visceral power of those early records, to which he adds well placed additional instrumentation into the arrangements. The result is a much more well-rounded sound, that doesn’t take anything away from the passion that makes Billy Bragg such a great experience.

Like all Bragg records, the songs are a mix of the personal and the political, with Bragg approaching both with bravery and truth.

The record begins with “Greetings to the New Brunette”. It is a love song, but it is a complicated love. The narrator’s enthusiasm for a woman named Shirley is clear, but through a series of vignettes you get the impression that she’s just not that into him. The song has potential for heartache, but Bragg sticks with a playful approach, repeating the song’s title at the end as his girl moves on to a true love, and our hero realizes she wasn’t ever “his girl” anyway.

“The Marriage” is another standout, as a man expresses his abiding love for his partner, while explaining why getting married isn’t something he’s into, claiming “marriage is just when we admit/our parents were right”. However, in the end he relents to the ceremony because hey – that’s love.

At the other end of the spectrum, Bragg’s social justice warrior is on full display, with two of his finest songs.

“Ideology” is a protest song against the sitting government that hearkens back to his earlier sound. His voice is big and bold here, and his guitar hits with a power and energy that makes it feel like a full orchestra. “There is a Power in the Union” is a union organizing song, based originally off an old Civil War song for Union soldiers (“Battle Cry of Freedom”) repurposed by Bragg for the labour movement. Apparently “Battle Cry of Freedom” was so popular a tune in the Civil War that the Confederates rewrote the lyrics to suit them and sang it as well. Proof that a good tune has a staying power all its own.

My copy of this record is a re-release with an extra disc of bonus tracks. I can’t say enough about how much I appreciate Bragg keeping the original record as-is and putting bonus content on a separate disc. Thank you, Billy!

As for those tracks, there are a lot of demos and alternate versions, which didn’t do much for me. Outside of the ‘no cowbell’ version of BOC’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” I’m not much for demos. However, there are a couple of beautiful covers (Woody Guthrie’s “Deportees” and Smokey Robinson’s “The Tracks of My Tears”). He also does a cover of Gram Parsons’ “Sin City” that I did not like. I recommend you to Emmylou Harris’ version if you want to enjoy that song properly. There is also a killer extra track called “A Nurse’s Life is Full of Woe” which is easily good enough to be on the original record.

“Taxman” is not a perfect record, but it has some of Bragg’s most enduring classics, and even the lesser tunes are strong. Bringing additional instrumentation and a slightly softer production lets you appreciate his songwriting even more, without taking away from the raw brash sound that gives him his passion.

Best tracks: Greetings to the New Brunette, the Marriage, Ideology, There is Power in a Union, Help Save the Youth of America, The Warmest Room

CD Odyssey Disc 1514: Harmony Woods

I purchased a bunch of new albums over the past week, but my crazy work and life schedule has prevented me from listening to any. Worse still, looking forward I don’t see it happening for at least another week. I guess I could watch less mid-week TV, but who are we kidding? I’m gonna watch that TV. I need to know what happens to those Locke & Key kids, damn it!

Fortunately, I am still finding time to listen to albums for the CD Odyssey, so here’s the latest!

Disc 1514 is….  Graceful Rage

Artist: Harmony Woods

Year of Release: 2021

What’s up with the Cover? Ophelia sat bolt upright and crossed her legs. “Damn that Hamlet!” Then, wondering why the notion of drowning had ever appealed, she gathered up her graceful rage and set off along the shore. At length she came across the hovel of a local fisherwoman and, after borrowing some dry clothes, left Denmark for good.

She was last seen living the good life on her own terms in Patagonia, free of vengeful ghosts, overprotective brothers and idiot princes alike.

How I Came To Know It: I read a review online and I thought it sounded interesting, so gave it a shot.

How It Stacks Up: This is my only Harmony Woods album so it can’t really stack up.

Ratings: 3 stars

Whimsical album cover narratives aside, “Graceful Rage” is an album about emerging from the depths of despair with a furious resilience. There is plenty of sadness to be had in these eight short songs, but they’re also songs of defiance and survival. And Ophelia doesn’t just live in this version; she’s got some things to get off her chest.

Harmony Woods is not (as the cover may suggest) a folk singer, but rather the name of an indie pop/rock band, fronted by singer Sofia Verbilla. And if you are looking for pale and wan birdsong on acoustic guitars, you will not find it here. “Graceful Rage” has some serious crunch, and the band is reminiscent as much of rock bands like Garbage as they are of the lighter side of pop.

Verbilla’s vocals are not overpowering, but she has the soul of a punk rocker and belts each tune out with truth and intensity. She’s both vulnerable and strong, and the combination of rock crunch and pop song structures reminded me favourably of bands like Camp Cope and Beach Bunny. On “Easy” she is at her finest, hitting an anthemic power that has her evoke her full power even as the liquid reverb of the guitar reflects the emotional turmoil of the experience.

Thematically, the record gives voice to women exiting (or reflecting back) on relationships with what sounds like some serious dickheads. I’m not sure if the record is about one individual dickhead, a collection of divers bastards or a single jerk-amalgam cobbled from multiple experiences. Whatever the case, they do not come off well. There’s gaslighting, emotional blackmail and douchebaggery to spare.

But for all the references to this jerk (or collection of jerks), the focus of the songs is not about them, but rather the strength of the women who emerge from the shadows they cast. There is a lot of sadness here, but there’s also a lot of catharsis.

The music matches the mood, with mournful melodies morphing into crescendos of sound, that subside back into something softer only to soar with anger anew. The music reflects an iterative and ongoing process rather than a full resolution, although as the final song, “I Can’t” crests with “you will never hurt me again/I can’t forgive you” you feel like there is a victory to be claimed from the rubble.

Even though I realized and appreciated that it was a part of the music’s emotional journey, I still found the arrangements a bit clangorous from time to time and on songs like “Good Luck Rd.” it got in the way of the bones of some solid songwriting. At other times (“God’s Gift to Women”) all that crash and bang was exactly what made the song amazing and powerful.

The overall impact was uneven, but I appreciated how these songs takes no prisoners; eviscerating failed relationships and leaving us to find what wisdom and solace we can in what remains.

Best tracks: Easy, God’s Gift to Women, I Can’t

CD Odyssey Disc 1513: Budgie

A combination of long workdays and a busy social calendar meant that I spent a lot more time getting to know this next record than it probably warranted. Here’s what I discovered.

Disc 1513 is….  If I Were Britannia I’d Waive the Rules

Artist: Budgie

Year of Release: 1976

What’s up with the Cover? As usual, Budgie gives us a bird-themed cover. Here we have some budgie-people locked in a space battle. They’re armed with rockets, which is pretty cool but they’re going to find their maneuverability limited given wings don’t work in the vacuum of space.

Also of note, the budgie in the middle has clearly been working out. Check out the bubble butt on that bird. I mean…squawk!

How I Came To Know It: My buddy Spence initially introduced me to Budgie, but these later records are me just digging through their catalogue.

How It Stacks Up: I have seven Budgie albums. One of them has to be my least favourite, and this one is it.

Ratings: 2 stars but almost 3

It’s rare for a band’s sixth album have the same magic as their previous five. There are exceptions to the rule, yes, but “If I Were Britannia I’d Waive the Rules” (hereafter referred to as “Britannia”) is not one of them.

All the usual ingredients for a good Budgie record are present. There are innovative guitar riffs counterbalanced with creative drumbeats and shifting prog-rock melodic structures. Like Rush, Budgie songs often feel like the band gets bored halfway through and decides to graft on a whole new song. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.

On “Britannia” it works a lot less than I’d like. A good example is the title track, which has a passably groovy guitar riff at the front, an even cooler (but different) guitar riff at the end and a whole lot of atmospheric filler in between them. Did it try my patience? Yes, reader, yes it did.

The album also has a bit more of a hippy dippy feel to some of the songs, as Budgie feels the influence of mellow mid-seventies radio rock going on around them. “You’re Opening Doors” even has a bit of jazz flute which was entirely unwelcome.

The band loves long and weird song titles, often inserting dad jokes and puns for good measure. “Britannia” has plenty of this, starting with the clever word swap in the title track. The worst offender is “Anne Neggen” which I think is them having a laugh at how the chorus of “and again! And again!” could be interpreted as a woman’s name. It is the kind of joke that is funny at 2 a.m. when you are still at the studio, a few joints in and feeling loopy. It is not the kind of joke that translates to the audience. Is it as bad as the risible “Napoleon Bona Parts 1 & 2” from “Bandolier”? Not quite, but close.

The best of the “weird title” songs is “Quacktors and Bureaucrats” which has a chugging bass line, and while it has about four different movements, they all fit together nicely, aided at critical junctures by the best friend of seventies rock, the cowbell.

While “Quacktors and Bureaucrats” is carefully planned and arranged, other songs like “Sky High Percentage” feel like a rock and blues band jamming at the bar. Their jamming at a high level, but that kind of experience isn’t my…er…jam. See that, Budgie? You’re not the only one who can force a little word play.

After a terribly schmaltzy “Heaven Knows Our Name” where Budgie tries (and fails) to get romantic, the album ends with “Black Velvet Stallion”. This song is glorious. It is a third dreamy and diffuse, a third crunching guitar, and a third “let the rhythm section hit ‘em” and it rolls through these iterations in a wheel of awesome for its full eight plus minutes.

My best guess is this song is about Budgie ruminating on one of those seventies black velvet paintings of a horse. A rather hilarious and of-its-time notion, made more awesome by deep thoughts like this:

“Black velvet stallion you're my child
Flower of tenderness growing wild
Look through my wilderness
No one would ever guess you're me
What I am seeing is me”

Don’t worry, boys; the drugs will wear off in a few hours and it’ll just be a painting of a horse again.

As over the top as it is, “Black Velvet Stallion” ends the record on a high note. Or at least it should. My version is once again one of those mid-oughts remastered copies, that features 2006 versions of both “You’re Opening Doors” and “Black Velvet Stallion”. These later recordings of the originals add nothing to the record, other than infuriating me. When I listen to “Britannia” outside of the “full listen, monkey” requirements, these are mercifully excluded from the experience. Even here after the one obligatory run through, I decided to…ahem…waive the rules.

The real question is, am I going to keep this album or let it go? I waffled considerably on this, and I expect if I’d had a couple fewer listens I’d probably have let it go. Instead, despite its faults it grew on me, which I’m taking as a good sign for the future.

Best tracks: about half of “If I Were Britannia I’d Waive the Rules”, Quacktors and Bureaucrats, Black Velvet Stallion

CD Odyssey Disc 1512: Lana Del Rey

This next album is the result of giving an artist another chance. I’m not saying you should always give an artist a second chance, mind you. I ‘m just saying it worked out this time.

Disc 1512 is….  Chemtrails Over the Country Club

Artist: Lana Del Rey

Year of Release: 2021

What’s up with the Cover? Girls’ Day down at the country club. It looks like a lot of fun is happening at this table. What are they celebrating? Wedding party? (Lana is wearing white) or maybe the opposite - but equal - side of fun…the divorce party! Or maybe these gals just meet every Saturday afternoon at the club to share some margheritas and a few laughs.

How I Came To Know It: After trying and never quite getting Lana Del Rey early in her career, I finally came around after re-listening to Norman Fucking Rockwell. I realized (albeit belatedly) that it was the masterpiece the critics said it was. It was only my general distrust of anything too popular that had held me back. I’m such an idiot that way.

Anyway, this epiphany (about Lana Del Ray specifically, not my iconoclastic idiocy) happened earlier this year, around the same time Del Rey released Chemtrails Over the Country Club. Now, better tuned in to her sound, and suitably chastened, I gave it a listen with eyes unclouded by preconceived notions. I liked it.

I’ve since dug into her back catalogue and found a couple earlier albums I’m now searching for.

How It Stacks Up: At present I only have two Lana Del Rey albums. Of those two, I put “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” in at #2.

Ratings: 3 stars

Lana Del Rey is the music of Hollywood glamour, if Hollywood glamour had something deep and insightful to say. “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” is her reveling in her fame and fortune, but with a healthy appreciation of just how ephemeral fame can be, and nostalgia for a simpler life before that fame existed.

The album is book-ended by this exploration. The opening track, “White Dress” has Del Rey reminiscing about days of waitressing. Del Rey turns the notion of a woman feeling invisible serving drinks at the “Men in the Music Business Conference” on its head, making the song about the free and heady experience of young sexual power. Sung in Del Rey’s signature melodic whisper, it is a song that demonstrates her breezy confidence and (to borrow from a previous record) her lust for life.

The album closes with a cover of Joni Mitchell’s “For Free,” performed with fellow chanteuses Zella Day and Weyes Blood. In the song, a now-famous artist appreciates a street busker on a clarinet. On “White Dress” the narrator is working at a fancy hotel, but in “For Free” she’s now staying in one, riding in limousines and living the good life. As she pulls away, she contemplates the ephemeral and often unfair nature of fame:

“Nobody stopped to hear him
Though he played so sweet and high
They knew he had never been on the TV
So they passed his music by”

In between these explorations of fame, Del Rey is happy to fill the record with what may be deep personal confessionals or may just be invented characters; I was never 100% sure which (hint: it doesn’t matter). The album has the lush resonance that all her albums possess to one degree or another, but it is more sparse, similar to “Norman Fucking Rockwell” although not as consistently strong.

One of the stand outs is the sexy and vulnerable, “Let Me Love You Like a Woman”, which lilts along like the slowest sexiest dance you could ever imagine. Think a perfect waltz frame from the waist up, but with the lascivious brushing of things as the dancers take their slow turn around the floor.

Del Rey doubles down on the sexy vibe with “Yosemite” a love of passion without regret, followed immediately by a duet with Nikki Lane called “Breaking Up Slowly” which somehow makes breaking up just as sexy as staying together. Takes me back to that album art – wedding or divorce? We don’t know, but Lana Del Rey is all in for the experience either way.

Like “Norman Fucking Rockwell” most of the songs on “Chemtrails…” are cowritten by Jack Antonoff. Antonoff does the cowriting gig a lot, and I want it to bug me. However, he has worked on some of the best pop records out there in the last few years (in addition to NFR, he has produced and cowritten parts of Taylor Swift’s “Folkore”, and St. Vincent’s “Masseduction”). That is one hell of a resume.

“Chemtrails Over the Country Club” is a step behind those records, but it is still a well-measured mix of old Hollywood elegance, seventies pop and the sexy siren vocals that are a Lana Del Rey original.

Best tracks: White Dress, Let Me Love You Like a Woman, Yosemite, Breaking Up Slowly, For Free

CD Odyssey Disc 1511: Kacy & Clayton

Over the weekend my friend Casey remarked, “don’t be petty, be Tom Petty.” Seemed like pretty good advice to me. However, if you can’t find it in yourself to be one of the greatest American songwriters in history, just make sure you manage the other half of the statement.

Disc 1511 is….  Strange Country

Artist: Kacy & Clayton

Year of Release: 2015

What’s up with the Cover? Kacy and Clayton stand on a large rock. The dirt is red, but does this country really qualify as “strange”? “Likely to stain your jeans” I’ll grant you, but I think “strange” is a stretch.

How I Came To Know It: I discovered Kacy and Clayton through their 2019 album, “Carrying On”. That caused me to dig into their back catalogue, and this is one of the records I decided…to not get. But then I found myself in the record store without my list and decided to give it a chance anyway.

Shopping for records is a lot like groceries – if you go without a list, you’re sure to pick up something you don’t need.  

How It Stacks Up: Not counting their recent collaboration with Marlon Williams (which I see as separate) I have two Kacy & Clayton albums: this one and the aforementioned “Carrying On.” I must assume “Carrying On” is better, as I didn’t like this one very much.

I have two other albums of theirs on my “to get” music grocery list, but they’ve been on there for a while, so I think I’ll give them another listen just to make sure.

Ratings: 2 stars

Kacy & Clayton are a Saskatchewan duo that have all the qualities of a band I should love. Simple folk music, singing tales of ordinary folk with a backdrop of minimalist production. Despite all this, it did not turn out well.

I think if I had somehow heard this record back in the early nineties I would’ve been more favourably disposed. Back then, I was heavily into ‘pure’ folk music. No contemporary sounds of any kind, thank you very much, and certainly no pop! I delved into the artists on traditionalist record label Green Linnett, sometimes picking them based on how many songs were in Gaelic (note – you couldn’t try records out on Youtube or Spotify back then – leading to all kinds of selection methods as arbitrary as that one, or worse).

Anyway, the singsong and high soprano vocals of Kacy Anderson is exactly the sort of thing you’d hear on Green Linnett. Anderson has a beautiful voice. It is light and pure like a Speyside whiskey.

The problem is that since then I’ve drifted to preferring a bit more peat in my Scotch, musically speaking. Here I found her vocals too pure, and while the songs tell many a traditional tale of tragedy and woe (as one expects from these kinds of tunes) I wanted a more grit in delivery. On my one other K&C album the production is a bit more complex, and it provides a counterbalance to Kacy’s singing. Here, she is on an island unto herself, and you either soar with her or she loses you in the high notes. More often it was the latter.

There are some standout moments on the record. The title track has a busker-style thump and strum to the guitar that fills it with energy, and the melody is well suited to the vocals. I felt like I was taking in an intimate show at some small outdoor concert venue.

“Brunswick Stew” is gloriously dark, as it tells the story of a young woman who gets pregnant out of wedlock, and to hide her shame sneaks out one night to the river and drowns the child as it is born. It is the kind of dark stuff you expect from 400-year-old folk ballads despite being a K&C original. They do a great job of capturing the timeless quality of these old traditional numbers. The song is grim, yes, but it is high quality grim.

Other than these two bright spots, (and some bonus points for cheekily naming the last track “Dyin Bed Maker”) I rarely felt drawn in or emotionally connected to the music. I kept wanting more of the thump of the title track, or the creep factor of “Brunswick Stew” and not getting it.

Objectively, this record is good, and I know from my continuing quest for more Kacy & Clayton albums that I like what they are going for. However, the heart wants what it wants. And so I’ll pass this along to someone who will appreciate it more than I did.

Best tracks: Strange Country, Brunswick Stew

CD Odyssey Disc 1510: NQ Arbuckle

Howdy! It is Sheila’s birthday this week so let’s start with an enthusiastic happy birthday to the love of my life! I’m such a lucky guy to have found my split-apart.

I don’t usually buy her music as a gift. My rule is if I was going to buy it for myself anyway, it isn’t really a gift, and she’s generally happy with the reams of music I bring home on my own. However, this year I knew she wanted a particular band, so I grabbed her two albums by eighties Canadian band, The Box. We’ll be giving those a spin tonight!

Disc 1510 is….  The Future Happens Anyway

Artist: NQ Arbuckle

Year of Release: 2014

What’s up with the Cover? This album is called “The Future Happens Anyway” and based on the cover, that future involves the earth being devoured by a disembodied tiger head of intergalactic proportions.

My personal favourite way for the world to end is to be suddenly engulfed in a black hole created in an experiment gone awry. However, as extinction-level events go, “devoured by an intergalactic tiger head” is definitely a close second in terms of awesome.

How I Came To Know It: This was an impulse buy. I was in local record store Lyle’s Place (now closed) digging through their bargain bin of $2 CDs. There was a whole whack of NQ Arbuckle in there, who I knew from an album where they partnered up with Carolyn Mark (reviewed back at Disc 1209). I’d also bought one of their records earlier in the year at a different record store (Ditch – still open). I liked them both and based on that I grabbed up everything available in the discount pile – three albums for $6. This was one of them.

How It Stacks Up: I have four NQ Arbuckle albums (not including that one with Carolyn Mark I just mentioned). Turns out this is all of them, so thanks to whoever parted with their NQ Arbuckle collection.

Of those four, I put “The Future Happens Anyway” in at…fourth. Nothing wrong with it, I just like the other three more.

Ratings: 3 stars but almost 4

NQ Arbuckle is a roots rock band with a natural talent for storytelling. Some of these stories have an autobiographical feel, while others are more character driven, but they all have a natural ability to draw you into their narratives.

A big reason for this is lead singer Neville Quinlan’s vocals. Quinlan has a tone that is rich and resonant, but also emotionally raw. The combination allows him to deliver songs that are fragile and full of doubt without sounding like he’s whining. A good example is “Panic Pure,” a song about living with anxiety. The song is a cover of a Vic Chesnutt original and hearing it you feel the burden the original songwriter would have carried all those years. Chesnutt died of a drug overdose at the age of 45, and the NQ Arbuckle cover is a fitting tribute.

On the originals front, “Death” covers similar ground, but despite a chorus of:

“Knock me down in your sunshine
The last thing I had on my mind
The bottleneck of dreams is trying to kill me
O death, I'm scared of you tonight”

The song’s tune and approach is triumphant. This is a song of fear, but it is about facing that fear down and pushing through until the sun rises.

There are missteps, however. “I Wish that My Sadness Would Make You Change” is a song about a guy hoping that his sadness will convince his lover to not leave. It is a sappy notion that isn’t worthy of a song, and Quinlan’s tone cannot overcome its cringeworthy theme. We’ve all been there but yeesh, let’s not memorialize it in song, people.

The record has some great tales on it. “Art O’Leary” is the true story of the 1775 murder of Irish soldier Art O’Leary, told from the perspective of his wife. Gorgeous and full of grief, the tune also had me off surfing the internet learning some history, which was also nice.

Also beautiful is “The Civil War Is Over” the story of an angry old man, fighting old battles as he slowly loses touch with the world. Told in the third person, you get to see him through snippets of the town growing around him, as NQ Arbuckle gives you a deeper insight into a town crank that you might ordinarily just pass by.

Musically, the record has a nice mix of guitar and piano, straddling the world between country and rock with an easy grace. The individual playing is solid, but it is the way NQ Arbuckle melts into a single sound that impressed me more. While Quinlan’s vocals and lyrics are the star of the show, NQ Arbuckle is a cohesive band, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

I liked this record more on every listen, and it made me keen to dig even deeper into the band’s discography.

Best tracks: Back to Earth, Red Wine, Art O’Leary, Death, Panic Pure, The Civil War Is Over

CD Odyssey Disc 1509: Loretta Lynn

Welcome back to the CD Odyssey. I just watched part of an episode of “Penn & Teller: Fool Us” while eating dinner, which is appropriate, since this next album went and fooled me.

Disc 1509 is….  Van Lear Rose

Artist: Loretta Lynn

Year of Release: 2004

What’s up with the Cover? Ms. Loretta Lynn herself, looking absolutely resplendent in a seafoam dress. With guitar in hand she looks ready to get married, and then play at her own reception.

How I Came To Know It: This record got a lot of hype because of the Jack White connection. I heard a couple of tracks and decided it was worth giving it a shot.

How It Stacks Up: This is my only Loretta Lynn album, so it can’t stack up.

Ratings: 4 stars

Loretta Lynn has been a fixture in my life for as long as I can remember. My mom had a bunch of her records, and I grew up listening to her tales of love, heartache and threadbare poverty. “Van Lear Rose” came out a good twenty-five to thirty years later but captures every bit of the vitality of those early records of my childhood.

In fact, this record sounds so timeless and classic, it messed me up, and left me convinced I’d known these specific songs as a kid. So convinced, in fact, that I spent a good amount of time trying to prove myself right. Despite some intensive Googling, I couldn’t find a single cover. It was downright unnerving, and more than a little humbling. A good reminder that no matter how certain something may seem, we all kneel before the power of cognitive dissonance.

I hope I can be forgiven my error, which was made a lot easier by just how good these songs are. Any one of them could have been a Loretta Lynn chart topper back in the sixties or seventies.

Back then, Lynn wrote unabashed songs about love not only failing, but failing ugly, with songs like “Fist City” where she threatens her husband’s mistress with a beating. “Family Tree” is the natural inheritor, but this time no fight is in the offing. As Lynn notes:

“No I didn't come to fight
If he was a better man I might
But I wouldn't dirty my hands on trash like you, no
Bring out the babies' daddy, that's who they've come to see
Not the woman that's burnin' down our family tree.”

The song is a sequel right down to the trash metaphors, (“Fist City” goes with “But the man I love/When he picks up trash/He puts it in a garbage can”). 35 years later, she holds both the cheater and the mistress equally below her contempt.

Lynn has variations on the theme throughout “Van Lear Rose,” including the sadness of broken communication (“Trouble on the Line”), a “Fist City” style barroom beatdown (“Mrs. Leroy Brown”) and a decision to graduate from fisticuffs to full-blown murder (“Women’s Prison”). Lynn has always told her stories from the perspective of unapologetic women, but in her maturity the dirtbag men that inspire her ire fade even farther into the background. On “Women’s Prison” the tragedy is not the murder of the philandering husband that inspires the tragedy, so much as the mother crying out as she loses her daughter to the electric chair.

Lynn also revisits themes of the poverty of her youth. That poverty is a long way in the rearview mirror by 2004, but on songs like “High on a Mountain Top” you can hear loud and clear how those early experiences continue to shape her worldview. Covering this same theme with less success is the spoken-word piece “Little Red Shoes.” You can tell Lynn likes telling another story about the struggle to afford shoes as a kid, but it feels trite and out of place amid the amazing melodies and vocals elsewhere on the record.

For all that poverty and heartbreak, it is the celebratory title track that steals the show. “Van Lear Rose” is a traditional “how I met your mother” song that celebrates good old-fashioned love at first sight. Like a lot of Loretta Lynn songs, it is a simple tale that she fills with colour and texture.

Loretta Lynn’s vocals hold up beautifully, with that mix of sweetness and quaver that rightfully made her famous. Added to this, Jack White throws in flourishes of his country blues stylings. They mesh particularly well on “Portland, Oregon” another love song that is a lot more ribald than “Van Lear Rose” but no less heartfelt. White’s work on the electric guitar is the perfect addition here, hazing up the song with boozy wisdom. Love at first sight, but this time with the aid of pitchers full of gin fizz.

White’s production is brilliant overall, as he adds flourishes here and there but never messes with the purity of Lynn’s songwriting. He never forgets that if you’re looking at Loretta Lynn, you’re lookin’ at country. The result is a record that is fresh and new, but feels so familiar it is like you’ve heard it a hundred times. You may even convince yourself you have.

Best tracks: Van Lear Rose, Portland Oregon, Family Tree, High on a Mountain Top, Women’s Prison, Mrs. Leroy Brown