In September, Patty Griffin will release her ninth studio album, Servant of Love. Chimesfreedom is a big fan of all of Griffin’s albums, so we are excited to be getting another CD from Griffin.
Not surprisingly, with an album title about “love,” some are reporting that the album is an accounting of Griffin reflecting on her break-up with Led Zepplin singer Robert Plant, who had worked with her on her 2013 album American Kid. The press release for the album, however, explains that on the album Griffin follows “the transcendentalism of writers like Emerson and Whitman.” Thus, the album is grounded “in the natural world” and finds “patterns there which speak both to human experience and to the call of the spirit.” Hmmm… sounds deeper than “screw-you-Robert-Plant.”
Two of the tracks from the album have hit the Internet, so you can get a sense of the album yourself. One is “Rider of Days.” Consistent with the talk of transcendentalism in the press release, NPR noted that the song is “more impressionistic than literal, but Griffin’s deceptively simple lyrics locate the emotional core of her bicycle-riding narrator.”
Another song from Servant of Love is “There Isn’t One Way.” Like NPR’s statement about “Rider of Days,” the Wall Street Journal noticed some vagueness in the song even though Griffin has revealed that she wrote the song after a seven-hour conversation with a friend. In the song, she explains, “There isn’t one way, isn’t one way/ There’s just you and your heart and a part you’ve got to play.”
Servant of Love
What do you think of the new Patty Griffin songs? Leave your two cents in the comments.
(Some related Chimesfreedom posts.)
includes the song “Forbidden Nights.”
On August 31, 1945, George Ivan Morrison was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, although we came to know him as 
, Peter Wrench writes that he sees the title song “[a]s a series of largely autobiographical shards from a young man who has travelled the world and achieved a great deal, but doesn’t feel nearly as settled or satisfied as people might expect.”
, on August 28, 2015.
On August 29, 2005, 
(2006). Below is the original version of the song by 
, is a low-key fascinating meditation on several topics, illuminated by the clash of a literary genius with the reporter’s attempts to find a story.
. We do learn about Wallace, but the movie does not overshoot, staying anchored in Lipsky’s memoir where he only had five days of access to Wallace. But the movie features smart dialogue and is revealing, both about Wallace and about Lipsky, as we watch the reporter do what reporters do as they invade a person’s privacy.
