Jesse Daniel Edwards: “Jesse Daniel Edwards” (2025) Vinyl Review

Jesse Daniel Edwards is a singer and songwriter based in Nashville. In 2022 he released We, The Product (a great title, don’t you agree?), and followed that in 2023 with American Dreaming and Violensia. In 2024, he released Clap Trap Venus (a really fun title). On his new album, a self-titled release, Jesse Daniel Edwards revisits some material from those other releases, though in a different setting. This album finds him performing solo on piano, delivering wonderful, stripped-down renditions of some of his best songs. All of the songs here were written by him. The album was recorded in Memphis, and produced by Denny Swofford. It is presented on a nice orange vinyl.

Side A

“I’m So Happy (I Think I Might Cry)” is so wonderfully sad at the beginning, with depressing opening lines: “I’ve been all around the world/Guess what?/It’s all the same.” Those lines perhaps hit us particularly hard now, at a time when we think that things must be better elsewhere, somewhere, or at least we hope they are. “The truth is I lied/When I said I was fine.” But what’s especially interesting about this song is that the energy increases, feeling a sort of joy rising within this air of melancholy. Sometimes there is a strange sort of happiness in feeling bad, but this song is ultimately quite positive, in that he has, or least says he has, all he really needs. Most of the trappings of this life are just not important. “But I’ve got a good pill for my thrills/And a good pill for my chills/And a very good excuse for my ills/And I’ve got almost too much time to kill.” This song was originally on Violensia, and on that recording those lines are somewhat different, not quite as sad, for there he sings, “I’ve got a good coat for my chills/And a good girl for my thrills.” Here the pills don’t seem to work, for he still has ills, and the only thing he can offer is a good excuse. This track features a moving vocal performance.

The piano work at the beginning of “This House Comes With A Ghost” feels like a memory playing in an important corner of our minds. On this track, Jesse Daniel Edwards sings, “These walls have seen it all/The stories they could tell/Of broken-hearted love affairs/And bittersweet farewells.” It is interesting to me how “it all” seems to not include anything joyful or pleasant. There is an almost delicate delivery of the song’s title line that first time it comes around. It’s too bad this song’s title wasn’t used in the description of the home a friend of mine bought. That would have saved her a lot of trouble (trouble all its previous owners faced too). It’s a beautiful song. That’s followed by “Everything Makes You Sick,” which was included on Violensia. “My head keeps spinning/But my world won’t turn.” What a great couple of lines. There is an intensity to his delivery and his playing. “But I’m going to be okay/Even though everything makes you sick these days.” Wow, this guy can craft some compelling lyrics. And after those lines, there is some nice work on piano. These lines also stand out to me: “Was all that time we spent in my bedroom/Just chemical relays in my mind?” In part, that’s because it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Is there free will? Or are all our choices simply the results of our chemical makeup? It makes us wonder just what exactly love is. Interestingly, toward the end, those early lines change to “My world keeps spinning/But my head won’t turn.” And this is the thought this song leaves us with: “Everything makes you sick/And there’s no cure.”

“Remember How To Love” is a pretty song with a sweet, gentle vocal delivery. “If I could remember how to love you/Maybe you’d remember how to smile/If I could remember how to love you/Maybe you would forget I need reminding once in a while.” There is love and ache in the delivery, and a feeling of doom mixed with hope, all making it a compelling song. “Maybe you would remember that you still love me too,” he sings at the end, and we hear, and feel, his vulnerability. The first side then ends with “Wrong About God,” a song about a chaplain in the army who became “tired of lying to dead men.” There is a haunted feel to his delivery. “So I tried to learn to play the guitar/But my fingers kept shaking.” In that moment, the music begins to grow in force. This is a powerful song, originally included on Clap Trap Venus. “But life is good/Everything is fine, I guess.” I love that “I guess,” which adds more honesty to the line, letting us know that everything isn’t quite fine. Or perhaps it is that he has trouble accepting that things are fine.

Side B

“She’s a glass of wine in a paper cup/Proof that something fine can be something rough,” Jesse Daniel Edwards sings at the beginning of “Secret Of You.” This is an interesting, honest and ultimately beautiful love song about how we see how incredible that special person is, believing that “Someday everyone is gonna feel exactly the same way/About you as I do.” How could they not? Ah, if only she felt the way about herself as I do. That’s the only one that really matters. That’s followed by “Nobody’s Got Me,” a song that was originally on Violensia. Here are the opening lines: “I like a voice in the dark/Simple things, like Sunday walks in sunny parks/After all, isn’t that what we’re all after?” It’s a song about loneliness, the song’s character seeing, or feeling, that everyone else has that special someone. The world looks different in those times. It’s not just loneliness; it’s the sense that you’re not understood, not known. This track contains some gorgeous piano work.

Every song on this album has lines that stand out, lyrics we want to hold onto. From “Omaha,” there are these: “But those nights we spent in Omaha/Spending tomorrows we didn’t have/Baby, don’t be sorry for that.” This song takes a look at the past, with mixed feelings. “Be sorry that the best times are past.” It’s a beautiful, moving song. Do you sometimes feel like everything is slipping away? In “Left Your Coat Behind,” Jesse Daniel Edwards sings, “And I know I’m running out of time/You’ve only just arrived, now you’re saying goodbye.” These lines had me in tears the first time I listened to this record, for I thought of death, of a final and eternal goodbye, rather than a temporary parting. “I know we’re running out of time.” It’s all so brief, this life, as well as all who are a part of it. Maybe we can return for a forgotten coat, but at some point there is no returning, for things much more important than a coat. And everything is left behind. This is one of my favorite tracks. It was originally included on American Dreaming. Death is also in the first line of the album’s final song, “So Passes The Light From The Eye”: “When I die, I’m going back to Akron.” It’s interesting how within even a single line our emotions can change. At the beginning of that line, I was still caught in the sadness of the previous track, but by the end I was smiling, smiling at the surprise of where that line took us. To Akron, of all places. There is a moment in this song that reminds me of Leon Russell, or perhaps Billy Joel at his best. “So passes the day into the long black night/With a flicker and a whisper, then goodbye.”

Record Track List

Side A

1. I’m So Happy (I Think I Might Cry)
2. This House Comes With A Ghost
3. Everything Makes You Sick
4. Remember How To Love
5. Wrong About God

Side B

1. Secret Of You
2. Nobody’s Got Me
3. Omaha
4. Left Your Coat Behind
5. So Passes The Light From The Eye

Jesse Daniel Edwards was released on February 21, 2025 on Cavity Search Records.