For a Song - 10 Rocks

Shelby Lynne: 10 Rocks

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The winter holidays are upon us. People of faith are celebrating tangible proof of that faith. The Jews give thanks for a small miracle, enabling a day’s worth of lamp oil to burn for eight days. The Christians give thanks for the coming of the Messiah. The scale and significance is completely different, but both are comforts in the darkest time of the year, reassurances that God is there. So 10 Rocks seemed to me to be an appropriate way to welcome the season. Shelby Lynne sings of various hardships, but ultimately, she knows her faith will get her through. This is not a holiday song, but its spirit seems to me to be truer to the season than much of what you will hear in the malls. And musically, 10 Rocks is a joyous celebration. I thought nothing could ever capture this feeling as well as Paul Simon’s Loves Me Like a Rock, but Shelby Lynne has matched it.

Shelby Lynne should be better known, but she is a musical chameleon. She tried to make it in mainstream country, and she has also done an album of western swing. So it is fitting that this song comes from an album called Identity Crisis. The music on this album would be labeled Americana, because it’s hard to know what else to call it. My advice would be, instead of calling it, just listen.