The album gets off to an excellent start with “Call An Angel.” Calling an angel is something many folks have felt a desire to do in recent years. Here are the song’s first lines: “Call angel/Call a cop/Call in the army/To make it stop/Call a witness/To the poverty/In the land of riches/Where we all sleep/Yeah, we’re all asleep.” The gap between the rich and everyone else seems to widen every day, and the dream of having a home is becoming more out of reach for many people. We’re all asleep, but no longer dreaming. The dreams have withered. Ruthie Purves Smith’s voice here speaks for all of us, and it’s a voice up to the task. “So call a preacher/‘Cause we’re nearly done.” This song was written by Ruth Purves Smith and Fred Koller. That’s followed by “Chelsea,” this one was written by Ruth Purves Smith and Brady Enslen. It tells the story of a woman Ruth Purves Smith met in a parking lot, a woman who was sad and feeling lost after being left by her man. It features some good work on steel guitar. “But today was one of the good days/I don’t know what went wrong.”
“Piano In The Field,” the album’s title track, has a more somber sound from the start. “Sirens, lights flashing across the window/Of a cheap motel room/She rented with her last dime/She loved him/God, she loved him with a passion/But she could never save him/Or stop her heart from breaking.” It is a tale of heartache, pain, poverty and lost dreams. But also of hope. “She left that piano in the field/And who knows if she’ll ever play again,” Ruthie sings here. What’s wonderful is that the piano plays a prominent role in this song, and there is some nice work on piano following those lines, as if she is playing again, or as if the piano itself is responding, playing for her. Soon after that, the song builds in power, and the vocals take on more of an edge too. It’s a powerful song. It was written by Ruth Purves Smith and Esther Purves-Smith. Keith Floen is on piano on this track. Then “Cross Over To You” is a beautiful, moving song about her father. “When I was just a little girl, my father said to me/Let’s take a walk down in the clover out across the creek/The only bridge across that stream was old and rickety/I was afraid and could not cross, so Dad came back for me/He said, ‘I will cross over.’” There is, of course, another sense to the phrase “cross over,” and the song is also about aging. It contains some nice work on piano in the second half. “And when there’s nowhere left to dance, we’ll have to fly/If you’ll just take my hand, I know it will be fine.” I like how she raises for her voice when delivering those lines. And at the very end she seems to assure all of us, “Oh yeah, it’s gonna be all right.”
“Look For Love” is a song about those who struggle with poverty, homelessness and medication. It features a beautiful chorus: “We look for love/But we can’t get enough/Yeah, it’s love/That we can’t get enough of/In this crazy world/We need a lot of love.” I don’t think anyone can argue with those lines, and they are delivered with passion. This is a song about reaching out a hand, and it provides a reminder that we too might find ourselves in need. That’s followed by “My Own True Love.” There is something adorable about this song, in its rhythm and delivery, and so its story catches us by surprise. “Still it doesn’t matter now, because my heart has turned to stone/And I saw through your thin veneer/All your shiny pistols won’t save you here/So go shoot up the night since you’ll never get clear/From the fury of the woman that you once held dear/Oh my dear, my love.” Yes, she sings this one to the man she is going to kill. “Gonna send you to the place I always figured you would go.” This is a seriously good song, featuring an excellent vocal performance.
Then we get a song called “Leonard Cohen Cover,” and yes, this song’s title is what initially drew my interest to the album. Being a longtime Leonard Cohen fan, I was curious just what this song would be about. What’s interesting is that is not about someone covering a Leonard Cohen song, but about the cover of one of Cohen’s albums. Specifically, it is about the artwork on the back cover of his first album, which depicts a beautiful woman surrounded by flames, breaking her chains and looking up. The song is about that woman. “And when the smoke and the fire couldn’t get any higher/You saw that I was still inside/Now I’m the lady in the flames on the Leonard Cohen cover.” What a compelling vocal performance. There is also a spoken word part by her father. This is the most intriguing and haunting song on the album. “Captain Kirk” then seems to burst forth from that. This is a playful, fun country number about Star Trek and Star Wars, with lines like “Everybody wants to be a Jedi knight, those guys that ever get hurt/Nobody ever wants to be that guy out in the front in the red shirt.” I loved both Star Trek and Star Wars when I was growing up. My earliest clear memory is seeing an ad for Star Wars in early 1977, and I was a fan and collector until Disney bought the series and immediately went about ruining it with that god-awful Force Awakens movie. That was the end of it for me. Star Trek had always had more to say about the human condition anyway, and provided more hope. “See where the force in you resides.”
Ruthie Purves Smith gets bluesy with her rendition of “Mama’s Got Wheels,” the only cover on the album. This song written by Jonathan Byrd, who included it on his You Can’t Outrun The Radio album. This track has a striking, cool vocal performance. I also love the backing vocal work, which has something of a gospel flavor at moments. That’s followed by “Heavy For Us All,” a good country number featuring some sweet work on steel guitar. “The weight is heavy for us all/And on the road to your demise/You might do things that are unwise/You may regret those things one day/Be careful as you find your way.” This song also includes a Hamlet reference, as she quotes Polonius, “To thine own self be true/‘Cause you’re the best you’ve got.” Polonius means something a bit different, and in the play he says, “This above all: to thine own self be true,/And it must follow, as the night the day/Thou canst not then be false to any man.” Derek Pulliam plays bass on this one. The album concludes with “Water Up The Creek,” which features some good bluesy guitar work. Dave Holloway provides the lead guitar solo on this track. There is also something undeniably catchy here. “Water, water in the creek/Water, water is so deep/Water, water overflow/Water, water here we go.”
CD Track List
- Call An Angel
- Chelsea
- Piano In The Field
- Cross Over To You
- Look For Love
- My Own True Love
- Leonard Cohen Cover
- Captain Kirk
- Mama’s Got Wheels
- Heavy For Us All
- Water Up The Creek
Piano In The Field was released on August 16, 2024
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