Tim Easton: “Find Your Way” (2024) CD Review

Tim Easton’s name has been popping up in multiple conversations lately, and he was interviewed for Cary Baker’s new book, Down On The Corner: Adventures In Busking & Street Music, about his time performing on the streets. I’ve learned to pay attention when someone is mentioned as often as Tim Easton is these days, and so I checked out his newest album, Find Your Way, which was released earlier this year. And it’s not only excellent, but needed. It’s an album I expect I will be turning to a lot over the course of the next four years. The songs, all originals, are ones of compassion, love, empathy, understanding – qualities that, based on our experiences of the years 2016-2020, will soon be completely absent from our political realm. This album will serve as an antidote to the cold, heartless, deranged actions of a country turned sociopath. They are not political songs. They are songs of humanity, of warmth, of resilience. Joining Tim Easton on this album are Ryland Moranz on mandolin, banjo, tenor guitar and backing vocals; Tyler Lieb on acoustic guitar and pedal steel; Jeremy Holmes on bass; Geoff Hicks on drums; and Daniel Lapp on violin.

“Find Your Way” opens with its title track, a gentle, pretty number offering a friendly word, and feeling like an embrace. “Every dream starts with some shaking/I’m not one to ask when it comes to pass/Every day is another chance to find your way.” Part of the song’s beauty comes from his vocal performance and the backing vocal work, and some of it comes from the pedal steel and violin work. And check out this line: “A wreck inside a wreck can hardly make demands.” One thing I take from this song is that it’s not over, we are not defeated, at least not personally. Each day presents opportunities. Then at the beginning of “Everything You’re Afraid Of,” Tim Easton sings, “You’re going to be all right/You’re going to be all right now.” Those lines feel like they are directed at each of us, like he is speaking to us, one on one. It’s a message we need to hear now, after the election. “Let’s take all that pain and rage and useless hatred away/Come on, remove yourself from everything you’re afraid of.” This song doesn’t just offer help, but encourages us to do the same for others. “Call a friend, ask them how they’re getting on, and mean it.” This track contains some wonderful work on guitar. It ends with this thought: “Turn and embrace everything you’re afraid of.” We’ll see.

“Here For You” is a pretty song in which he sings “No matter what you told your friends/I’m always here for you.” This is exactly the kind of song we’re going to need to get through the next four years, years which are certain to bring many kinds of misery to people. The lines that really stand out for me are “Anyone walking their dogs past/Can see that I’m under the weather keeps changing,” particularly the way the words “the weather” can simultaneously end one thought and begin another. “Here For You” is followed by “Jacqueline,” which has a sweet vibe. This one comes out of the pandemic, with lyrics like “Drive south, get out of this lock down/Or carry on with your life of heartache/When will you ever take your foot off of those brakes?” “Little Brother” has a soft, intimate sound at the beginning, which works to draw us closer. This song takes us to Bangor, Maine at first, and to places within a pained existence, punctuated by the question, “Mama, won’t you come back to us now?” It’s a powerful and sad song, and it’s one of my personal favorites. How do we help someone when we don’t know our way ourselves?

Tim Easton turns to a great blues sound on “Bangin’ Drums (Inside My Mind),” its first line being a variation of the familiar blues line “I woke up this morning,” Tim here singing, “Woke up this afternoon with the sun already high in the sky.” And these lines will likely stand out to folks these days: “Help me leave these worries, all these useless worries behind/Help me quiet down the banging drum inside my mind.” This track features some nice stuff on harmonica in the middle, and is another of this disc’s highlights (though, truly, every track is strong). Tim continues with a delicious folk blues sound on “Arkansas Twisted Heart.” Here are the song’s opening lines: “I hear you singing in the kitchen and you know it’s sinkin’ my heart/I don’t want you to stop but it kills me every time you start/There’s nothing like love to make a mess of a wounded heart. Well, you know it when you know it, and the heart’ll choose what it wants to choose.” Great lyrics, right? And I appreciate the play in the use of the word “sinkin’” in a line that also contains the word “kitchen.” Wordplay like that often works in a way that we might not even be completely conscious of. This song goes on to tell the tale of a couple, featuring some great details, providing a vivid picture of this relationship. There is some excellent playing on this track, with a bit of a front porch flavor. And check out this line: “We never shut the doors on the things that we used to do.” That fantastic line helps us understand completely what’s happening to the people of this song. “Arkansas Twisted Heart” was written by Tim Easton and Jaimee Harris.

Some lines from “Dishwasher’s Blues” that stand out for me are these: “Just because you quote Jesus/And a line or two from Five Easy Pieces/Doesn’t mean you have the right/To tell me how to live my life.” Those lines had me laughing out loud the first time I heard them and thinking of that one scene we can all quote from that movie. But they are also quite meaningful lines, for there are those who feel they can tell others how to live just because they found some answers for themselves in a particular book. And for that reason, I love how Tim Easton equates that with quoting a movie. I’ve always thought that quoting The Bible is comparable with quoting passages from any other book, or movie or song for that matter. Anyway, this is a fun track, and it features some good stuff on guitar and fiddle. Jeannie Tolmie and Leeroy Stagger provide backing vocals on this one.

“What Will It Take?” is beautiful, and beautifully sad, song. “What will it take, what will it take/What will it take for you to love me again?” The question is asked earnestly, making it all the more heartrending. This song also features moving work on pedal steel and violin. The album then concludes with “By The End Of The Night,” which has a gentle vibe, like a summer breeze, with a vocal quality that might remind you of some classic vocal numbers from the 1950s and early 1960s. And it’s a sweet, romantic song, featuring some wonderful stuff on guitar. “It’s just something that happens/To those who don’t want to be alone/By the end of the night/By the end of the night/There’s nothing more to do/But fall in love with you.”

CD Track List

1. Find Your Way
2. Everything You’re Afraid Of
3. Here For You
4. Jacqueline
5. Little Brother
6. Bangin’ Drum (Inside My Mind)
7. Arkansas Twisted Heart
8. Dishwasher’s Blues
9. What Will It Take?
10. By The End Of The Night

Find Your Way was released on May 17, 2024 on Black Mesa Records.