Son Volt Tries to Give Some Insight Into Our Times With “Union” (CD Review)

Son Volt, let by Jay Farrar, tackle many of the issues of our current era with the new album, Union. The result is an admirable attempt to aim high and create important music with something to say.

Son Volt

One hears echos of past activists and the tradition of folk music’s commentary on the times. Clearly, Farrar was trying to connect with that history. The band recorded three of the album’s songs at the Mother Jones Museum in Illinois and recorded four songs at the Woody Guthrie Center in Oklahoma.

Sometimes the earnestness and the weight of trying to connect to Mary Harris (“Mother Jones”) and Guthrie seem to burden the music, with direct lyrics that do not leave much to the imagination. But the band’s playing is great, and Farrar’s voice is in great form. The often-changing cast of the band here includes Mark Spencer, Andrew DuPlantis, Chris Frame, and Mark Patterson. So even lyrics that seem too obvious — “Ninety-nine percent / It’s a trickle-down world” — still come in catchy songs that stick in your head. Other songs like “Lady Liberty” and “While Rome Burns” also land direct punches.

Connecting the Personal to the Universal

The songs that work best connect to personal moments or make you think in ways you may not have thought before. For example, the title track “Union,” recounts Farrar’s father’s belief about the need for something to bind the country together: “He said national service/ Will keep the union together.”  Of course, many presidents have shared a similar belief, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to more recent presidents like George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

One of the more powerful songs on the album is “Reality Winner.” A listener may be excused if after an initial listen the chorus makes the person think the song is about the reality TV star as president (“What have you done, Reality Winner?”). But the song tells the story of an Air Force veteran named Reality Winner. She is now in prison for being a whistleblower to let Americans know the Russians affected the 2016 election. While not as epic as Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane,” another song about a prisoner, one may hope that the song helps draw more attention to Winner, who was sentenced to more than five years in prison.

Similarly, “The Symbol” uses a personal tale to make a larger point. Farrar sings in the voice of an undocumented immigrant who has been in the U.S. for ten years and had children in the country. Even though he helped rebuild New Orleans, the immigrant now hears people calling him a criminal.

Not every song is about politics. “Devil May Care” is about a barroom band. Farrar has noted he included the song as sort of a respite from some of the heavier themes on the album. Other less political songs include “Holding Your Own” and “The Reason.”

The band also took an old song and made it new. Activist Joe Hill wrote the lyrics to “Rebel Girl,” and the words were published in the early 1900s in the Little Red Songbook by the Industrial Workers of the World. Farrar added music to Hill’s words. In doing so, he created a wonderful merger of meaningful heartfelt lyrics with beautiful music, forming an instant classic, again connecting something personal and individual to something larger.

That’s the rebel girl, that’s the rebel girl;
To the working class she’s a precious pearl;
She brings courage and pride to the fighting rebel boy;
I will fight for freedom with a rebel girl.

Conclusion

So, what to make of this album that has received mixed reviews ranging fromAmerican Songwriter hearing an “emotionless approach and . . . muted instrumentation” to American Highways finding “new political depth” in the album? Union is far from perfect, but there are near perfect moments. It is difficult for an artist to take on modern political issues while society is still working out those issues and their meaning. But here is a noble attempt. And we should all appreciate that Jay Farrar and Son Volt are using good music to try to tell us something.

What is your favorite song on Union? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • New Track from Son Volt: “Devil May Care”
  • You and Me and Cisco Know
  • Son Volt: “Back Against the Wall”
  • Ewan MacColl: “My Old Man”
  • Uncle Tupelo’s Last Concert on May 1, 1994
  • Catching an All-Night Station: Son Volt Re-Issuing “Trace”
  • ( Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

    New Track from Son Volt: “Devil May Care”

    Son Volt Union

    Son Volt has released a video and new song, “Devil May Care.” The song appears on the band’s upcoming new album Union.

    Reports indicate that Union will largely be a political album. But the song “Devil May Care” seems to be recounting images from a barroom band. So, like the song’s name, it seems to be one of the lighter themed songs on the album.

    Son Volt’s Jay Farrar has explained that “Devil May Care” is a respite from some of the heavier themes on the album, such as another song’s take on income inequality. For “Devil May Care,” Farrar noted,
    “Wait a minute, music is supposed to make you throw your burdens to the wind,’ so I tried to include that approach as well.” Check out the new song from Son Volt.

    Harmonic fidelity boost;
    High pass filter on a balanced line;
    Or a cigarette on a headstock;
    All the same, just make it rhyme.

    Transmit Sound/Thirty Tigers will release Son Volt’s ninth studio album Union on March 29, 2019.

  • Son Volt Tries to Give Some Insight Into Our Times With “Union” (CD Review)
  • Son Volt: “Back Against the Wall”
  • Uncle Tupelo’s Last Concert on May 1, 1994
  • Catching an All-Night Station: Son Volt Re-Issuing “Trace”
  • Son Volt Goes to Bakersfield on “Honky Tonk”
  • Anniversary of Uncle Tupelo’s “March 16-20, 1992”
  • ( Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

    Son Volt: “Back Against the Wall”

    Notes of Blue
    Son Volt will be releasing a new album, Notes of Blue on February 17, 2017. From the sound of one of the tracks, “Back Against the Wall,” it could be another classic album from the band led by singer-songwriter Jay Farrar.

    The sound of the new album is reportedly influenced by the work of Mississippi Fred McDowell, Skip James and Nick Drake.

    Son Volt has already released the song “Back Against the Wall” from the upcoming album. Check it out.



    What do you think of the new Son Volt music? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • New Track from Son Volt: “Devil May Care”
  • Uncle Tupelo’s Last Concert on May 1, 1994
  • Catching an All-Night Station: Son Volt Re-Issuing “Trace”
  • Son Volt Goes to Bakersfield on “Honky Tonk”
  • Anniversary of Uncle Tupelo’s “March 16-20, 1992”
  • Son Volt Tries to Give Some Insight Into Our Times With “Union” (CD Review)
  • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

    Uncle Tupelo’s Last Concert on May 1, 1994

    Tupelo Final Show The great alt-country band Uncle Tupelo played its last concert on May 1, 1994, at Mississippi Nights in St. Louis, Missouri. Fortunately, the concert is now available on YouTube in high quality video.

    By the time of this show, Jeff Tweedy and Jay Farrar were already not getting along well. Soon after the performance, they would both go on to create other bands, with Farrar founding Son Volt and Tweedy forming Wilco.

    But on that night in May 1994, there was one last grasp at combined harmony and greatness. In the video below, Tweedy and Farrar trade off on the lead vocals, with drummer Mike Heidorn joining the band on the final song of the set, “Looking for a Way Out,” and also singing on the encore with Brian Henneman and the Bottle Rockets on Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gimme Three Steps.”

    So, take some time to travel back to 1994 when one of the great bands was still together. The final words of the show: “That’s got to be it.” Check it out.

    From YouTube, the songs at this performance are: “No Depression”/ “Chickamauga”/ “Watch Me Fall”/ “Grindstone”/ “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down”/ “Fifteen Keys”/ “Long Cut”/ “Anodyne”/ “New Madrid”/ “Slate”/ “Atomic Power”/ “Postcard”/ “Gun”/ “High Water”/ “Acuff-Rose”/ “True to Life”/ “We’ve Been Had”/ “Give Back the Key To My Heart”/ “Everybody Knows This is Nowhere”/ “Whiskey Bottle”/ “Truck Drivin’ Man”/ “Looking for a Way Out” (w/ Mike Heidorn)/ “Gimme Three Steps” (w/ Heidorn and the Bottle Rockets, Brian Henneman vocals).

    What is your favorite Uncle Tupelo song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • Son Volt Goes to Bakersfield on “Honky Tonk”
  • Anniversary of Uncle Tupelo’s “March 16-20, 1992”
  • New Track from Jeff Tweedy: “I’ll Sing It”
  • New Track from Son Volt: “Devil May Care”
  • Son Volt: “Back Against the Wall”
  • Catching an All-Night Station: Son Volt Re-Issuing “Trace”
  • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)

    Catching an All-Night Station: Son Volt Re-Issuing “Trace”

    Trace Son Volt Remaster In 1995, Jay Farrar — fresh off the dissolution of Uncle Tupelo — released the album Trace with his new band Son Volt. The album was an instant classic, and I still maintain that the album as two of the greatest alt-country songs ever released, “Windfall” and “Tear-Stained Eye.” Now, Son Volt is releasing a twentieth anniversary edition of the album with bonus tracks in a 2-CD set.

    The original album also remains as one of the great modern meditations on themes of alienation and rural living, with lyrics touched by Farrar’s efforts to come to terms with the breakup of Uncle Tupelo. As Richard Byrne wrote at the time of the original release in Riverfront Times (St. Louis): ” Trace is a long love poem to the Mississippi River, with passages of sheer poetic intensity. It’s also an emotional chronicle of the breakup of Farrar’s former band. . . . Much of Trace has a spirit and a substance that many of the great American novels of this century have.”

    Rhino Records and Warner Brothers Records are working together to release the expanded and remastered deluxe edition of Trace, which in addition to the album will include eight demos of album tracks. Also, the second CD will feature a 15-track live set from a February 12, 1996 show at The Bottom Line. There also will be an LP version, downloadable tracks, and an expanded booklet.

    Jay Farrar will also be hitting the road to perform songs from the classic album, billing the tour as “Jay Farrar Performs Songs of Trace.” He will be joined by original pedal steel player, Eric Heywood, along with Gary Hunt, who plays a number of instruments. May the new release and tour take your troubles away, as in this 1996 Austin City Limits performance of “Windfall.”

    The new remastered and deluxe version of Trace hits stores on October 30.

    What is your favorite Son Volt song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

  • New Track from Son Volt: “Devil May Care”
  • Son Volt: “Back Against the Wall”
  • Uncle Tupelo’s Last Concert on May 1, 1994
  • Son Volt Goes to Bakersfield on “Honky Tonk”
  • Anniversary of Uncle Tupelo’s “March 16-20, 1992”
  • Son Volt Tries to Give Some Insight Into Our Times With “Union” (CD Review)
  • (Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)