Raina Rose _ When May Came

[purchase]

I have a confession to make. When I reviewed the album End of Endless False Starts here, the album had actually been out a while. So it was fifteen months later that Rose put the wraps on her new one. And here it is.

End of Endless False Starts described a turbulent relationship, but ended on a hopeful note, as the title would suggest. But soon after, Rose left her boyfriend and even lived in her car briefly. When May Came tells what happened next. The songs may have different narrators in somewhat different situations. But, as with End of Endless False Starts, there is still a narrative arc here. What is described is the mourning process for a relationship.

The album is divided into three sections. The first four songs are ballads or midterm numbers, and all feature narrators at the end of relationships, but still hoping that they can stay together. There is a dramatic tension in these songs, a tug of war between sorrow and hope. If You’re Gonna Go starts with the words, “If you’re gonna go, go now.”, and the last verse starts, “So I’ll go, and I’ll go lightly.” She seems to have given up. But the last line of each chorus is, “So just stay with me this morning.” These songs are not emotionally tidy, but they shouldn’t be.

The music features the guitar here and throughout, with other instruments adding color. Rose produced this one herself, and the musical textures are not as varied as last time, but that suits the material well. Rose’s voice has lost much of the sweetness that was there last time, again, as suits the material. Here, Rose sounds like she has done a lot of crying, and not many tears are left. This was perhaps the biggest surprise to me on When May Came. I didn’t know from last time that Rose could sing like this.

So, I mentioned that the album has three sections. The next two songs provide a breather. Desdemona describes a literal or figurative road trip taken by two women who start the song as strangers. To me, this one had a Thelma and Louise feel. Nashville describes the hopes and fears of a musician trying to make it in the town of the title. The song has no illusions, but sounds a hopeful note. These two songs are uptempo numbers, and provide a bit of relief from the relationship songs.

The last section is five songs long. Here, the narrator finds a way to accept what has happened and try to move on. The emotional tug of war is between denial and acceptance. Pretty Good Today trying to deny the hurt and say she’s fine. In What Do You Bury?, the man has died, and the narrator tries to say she never loved him, as she reviews all of his flaws. But it is still hard to let go. But finally Heart Broke Open and Bluebonnets, she is ready to say, “Yes, I still hurt, but I am ready to try to love again.” I found Bluebonnets particularly moving. The song is a promise to a lover that she has made mistakes, but will try to do better. Will she succeed? Perhaps Raina Rose’s next album will tell us. Or maybe Rose will decide not to be so personal next time. Either way, I look forward to more fine word craft and storytelling. And I look forward to Rose continuing to impress with the range of expression in her voice.

Raina Rose: If You‘re Gonna Go

Raina Rose: Bluebonnets

Raina Rose - End of Endless False Starts

[purchase]

There is a singer/ songwriter I know of. She has a limited vocal range, and her vocal lines sometimes seem limited as a result, but she manages within these limitations to be remarkably expressive. Her guitar playing doesn’t call attention to itself, but, on rare occasions it comes out that she is a fine player. But the main draw is her words. She writes the kind of enigmatic lyrics that can make close friends get into heated discussions about their meaning, but, with no agreement reached, the conversation is fascinating.

No, I’m not talking about Suzanne Vega. I’m talking about Raina Rose.

End of Endless False Starts is Raina Rose’s latest release. Rose sings in a voice with a deceptive sweetness to it. I kept expecting the album to dissolve into new-age vapidness, but it never happens. In fact, Rose’s voice has a strength to it that creeps up on you slowly as you listen. Her guitar playing is a highly rhythmic strumming, with occasional fingerpicking mixed in. Producer John Elliott creates varied textures for the songs, starting with mostly acoustic instruments initially, then adding distorted electronics in the middle part, and pulling back to the softer sound at the end.

Before I go on, I want to tell you a little about myself. I mentioned that Rose’s lyrics are enigmatic, and I interpreted them through the filter of my own experience. I am the youngest of three boys. When I turned eighteen, my father gathered the family together to tell us that he was leaving my mother. My mother nursed her hurt for several years, and my parents never got back together. But eventually, they became friends again. In due time, I got married. My wife and I had four years together before my daughter was born. Eventually, we also had a son. We are still together, and I don’t foresee that changing.

Now, let me tell you what I hear in Raina Rose’s words. End of Endless False Starts describes the evolution of a relationship. The album begins with Are You Still in Love With the World? When the two characters meet, one or both are on the rebound from a painful breakup. As they set aside the emotional baggage, Desire, physical, emotional, and intellectual, takes over. They become an item. Blind Cyrus reveals that she is a traveling musician, one who suffers a sudden attack of homesickness in the middle of a performance. Air & Water skips ahead in time. Now they have had a son and a daughter, and the children are ready to go off on their own; the couple are about to get reacquainted, after living for the children for so long. The River backs up, to look at their hopes and fears from when their son was born.

Suddenly, in Misaligned Tires, the music changes abruptly. What had been a sunny sound, with only occasional clouds, abruptly turns dark and threatening. The song describes a wild and dangerous ride. He leaves her all of a sudden, as she wrestles with her pain and anger. It’s an amazing and startling moment on the album. After some time has passed, she realizes that she still loves and misses him. This is eloquently expressed in This Ain’t My House. Finally, in Not Not Love, they get back together. The relationship now has a sense of fragility that was never there before, and this is captured beautifully.

The album closes with Starts With a Low Hum. Everything seems to be in turmoil again, and the lyrics here were the most opaque to me of any on the album. But what I think may be happening is that the mother is seeing her experiences repeated in her daughter’s life. All of the old feelings come back in a rush.

Sprinkled throughout all of this are religious allusions and images that I cannot interpret. So there could be a whole other layer of meaning that I am completely missing. What I know is that the words are fascinating, and the album as a whole is compelling and emotionally real. Raina Rose is hard at work on her next one. I hope to have a report here when it’s done.

I should also mention a peculiar thing. There are ten songs listed on the album cover. But, if you pop the disc into your computer, you will discover that there are twelve tracks. Track eleven is a minute and a half of silence followed 20 seconds of odd noises. But track twelve is an extra song called I Would Like to Kiss Everyone. I was strongly tempted to post it here, to make sure everyone got to hear it. It has a great groove, and a very imaginative arrangement. I don’t think it fits in with storyline of the album, but it is a treat.

Raina Rose: Blind Cyrus

Raina Rose: Misaligned Tires