The first line of “Copper Canteen,” for example, is one I
find really funny: “Honey, don’t you be
yelling at me when I’m cleaning my gun.” And yet there is something really
sweet about the folk sound of this song, with his son Curtis McMurtry on banjo
and Rick Nelson on strings. There are a lot of lines that I really like in this
song, like these: “This life that we
crave/So little we save/Between the grandparents’ graves and the
grandchildren’s toys” and “And your
breath on my skin/Still pulls me back in/’Til I’m weightless and then I can
rest.” This is one he did when I saw him in concert.
He also played “Ain’t Got A Place” at that show,
performing it as the encore. This is one of my favorite tracks. Dustin Welch
joins him on banjo for this one. Even as he sings that he “ain’t got a place in this world,” the song will have you tapping
your feet and smiling. I love how he can surprise you with his lyrics; you can’t
predict the direction he’ll go. Check out these lines for example: “Rivers run east out of West Virginia/Rivers
run west down in Tennessee/A river runs north out of South Dakota/None of that
makes a damn to me.” The last line comes as a delightful surprise.
“She Loves Me” has a pretty feel, but tells of an unusual
love. Check out these lines: “I hear she
has another/I hear she likes him well/I won’t be home ‘til Christmas/They’ll be
at it for a spell/It was part of our agreement/I signed off on the deal/I must
admit I never saw it happening for real/’Cause she loves me.” Excellent,
right? This is another of my favorites. “I’m
not writing this screenplay/It’s writing me.” “How’m I Gonna Find You Now”
is another highlight, and is another that he performed at that show last year,
one of the songs I was excited to hear again, and one that I’ll be adding to my
road trip mix CD list, with lines like “I
got a rattle in the dashboard driving me crazy/And if I hit it with my fist it
will quit for a little while/Going to have to stop and take a piss in another
mile” and “I’ll leave the hitchhiker
standing ‘cause I haven’t got room.” This one has something of a mean
bluesy rock edge.
Curtis McMurtry joins James again on “Deaver’s Crossing,”
this time providing some backing vocals. Dirk Powell also provides some backing
vocals on this wonderful folk track, as well as playing bass, mandolin and
banjo, giving it something of a bluegrass feel.
Derek Trucks joins James McMurtry on the fun “Forgotten
Coast,” playing slide guitar. And then on “South Dakota,” James McMurtry is
joined by Sam Broussard on electric guitar, and by Richard Comeaux on pedal
steel. This is another that he played when I saw him concert, and the line that
stuck in my mind was, “And barbed wire
won’t stop the wind.” Have I mentioned what a talented and intelligent
songwriter he is? The beginning of “Long Island Sound” has a different vibe, a
gorgeous Irish folk sound, with Mike McGoldrick on uilleann pipes. Donald Shaw
plays accordion and harmonium on this track. The album then concludes with “Cutter,”
which features Benmont Tench (from Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers) on Hammond
B3. I know some people for whom these lines will have particular meaning: “I cut myself sharp and deep/It’s the only
thing that lets me sleep/Takes the pain from off my face/And puts it in one
tiny space/Where I can keep it down out of sight.”
CD Track List
- Copper Canteen
- You Got To Me
- Ain’t Got A Place
- She Loves Me
- How’m I Gonna Find You Now
- These Things I’ve Come To Know
- Deaver’s Crossing
- Carlisle’s Haul
- Forgotten Coast
- South Dakota
- Long Island Sound
- Cutter
Complicated Game
was released on February 24, 2015.
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