Arlo McKinley adds to his wonderful songs of loss and heartbreak with “Watching Vermont,” the first song from an upcoming EP release.
Singer-songwriter Arlo McKinley has released a new song, “Watching Vermont.” In addition to posting “Watching Vermont,” McKinley announced plans to release a new song in each of the next few months, leading to his upcoming three-song EP, Borrowed & Blue.
The Ohio-born McKinley has three outstanding albums under his belt, after only releasing his first album, Arlo McKinley & The Lonesome Sound (2014), at the age of 35. Following that release in 2019, John Prine stopped by a show and became a fan. Subsequently, Prine’s indie label Oh Boy Records signed McKinley, who released the albums Die Midwestern (2020) and This Mess We’re In (2022). At the time of the release of the latter album during the pandemic, Chimesfreedom called it an “outstanding timely and timeless album” that “reflects on pain, loss, and hope.”
In the new track, “Watching Vermont,” the lyrics do not mention the state that is in the title. But the evocation of winter and an old road create an image of Vermont. In the song, the singer says goodbye to a former love: “As your old place / It fades in the rearview / I’m trying to get my mind off you.”
Check out McKinley playing “Watching Vermont” below.
Arlo McKinley’s outstanding timely and timeless album “This Mess We’re In” reflects on pain, loss, and hope.
Singer-songwriter Arlo McKinley has followed up his critically aclaimed 2020 album Die Midwestern with another outstanding outing on This Mess We’re In (2022). While the new album, like the previous one, mines the tragedies of life, McKinley’s warm voice reminds us we are not travelling alone.
Songs on This Mess We’re In reflect McKinley’s attempts to make some sense of everything, or at least to find some hope. As NPR describes, the new album “reflects on loss, addiction, self-forgiveness and navigating this post-pandemic world.” Like for many of us, the last few years have not been easy on McKinley. Having struggled with his own addiction in the past, McKinley faced several losses in the last few years, including the deaths of his mother and several close friends.
“Now I know that nothing is forever; And no one leaves As perfect as they came.” – “Dancing Days”
McKinley writes from his personal experiences but as in all good art, the personal is universal. Many of the songs on This Mess We’re In touch on heartbreak (“I Don’t Mind”), longing and loneliness (“Rushintherug”), addiction and striving to get back home (in a lovely duet with songwriter Logan Halstead on “Back Home”), male friendship (“City Lights”), and loss (“Here’s to the Dying,” a song McKinley wrote about his mother passing away).
The album’s themes are timeless, but they also seem especially right and inspired by modern times. There’s even what appears to be a nod to youthful revolutionary spirits in “To Die For,” a song McKinley wrote about the music industry.
We watched as they chose to ignore, The changing of the guard and the sound; We were few but we were ready for war; A war, to burn this place to the ground. — “To Die For”
Despite the willingness to confront the darkness, McKinley maintains there may be some light at the end of the tunnel, especially in the touching piano ballad of the title track, “This Mess We’re In.” As in “To Die For,” the singer again references setting the world on fire, but in a different way, with the woman he loves. In the struggle to get through the mess, the singer finds “proof that the bad days do get better” and “proof that love is still alive.”
McKinley has further explained, that despite the tragedies reflected in many of the songs, “I don’t think any of them are without hope. I never write a song where I feel it comes across as being defeated completely. I may feel defeated at this moment, but it can get better – that’s the mindset I’m writing from.”
The overall sound of the album is not a major digression from Die Midwestern, although McKinney has noted that This Mess We’re In features mores strings and organs. The Ohio artist further explained to the Cincinnati Enquirer that during the making of the new album, “I was listening to a lot of Nick Cave and Nick Drake at this time. I think some Nick Drake snuck in there. It was different from anything I’ve done yet. A lot of this record is different than anything I’ve put out.”
And then there is McKinley’s outstanding voice. Arlo McKinley remains one of the outstanding singer-songwriters we are lucky to still have around, producing wonderful albums since signing as a solo artist on John Prine’s Oh Boy Records. Check out the first single from This Mess We’re In, “Stealing Dark From the Night Sky.”
What is your favorite song on The Mess We’re In? Leave your two cents in the comments.
Arlo McKinley’s new song “Die Midwestern” evokes the tragedy and impact of drugs on the Midwest.
It has been a few years since we had a Song-of-the-Day from Arlo McKinley. So we are long overdue for checking in with the Ohio singer-songwriter on John Prine’s Oh Boy Records. The title track from his upcoming album Die Midwestern evokes how one may feel trapped by geography into a certain path.
McKinley explains that “Die Midwestern” is about a love-hate relationship with his home state of Ohio. “The Midwest is full of drugs that end up controlling people. . . . I love [Ohio] because it’s everything that I am but I hate it because I’ve seen it take my loved ones lives, I’ve seen it make hopeful people hopeless.” He adds, “Temptations run all along the Ohio river, but it’s so hard to watch the Ohio fade in the rearview mirror.”
The video for “Die Midwestern” features McKinley around Cincinnati. Check it out.
Arlo McKinley‘s album Die Midwestern hits the Internet on August 14, 2020. It features ten original songs by McKinley.
YouTube often can help you find artists you have never heard before. I start with a search for a musician I like, and then I start clicking through other artists’ videos on the side. That is how I recently ran across Arlo McKinley & The Lonesome Sound.
The band released its self-titled debut album in 2014. But there is not a lot about them on the Internet. There is no proper Arlo McKinley & The Lonesome Sound website beyond the Bandcamp site.
There is a Facebook page keeping fans updated about their performances (around 2,300 Likes so far). But the band — whose members are from the Cincinnati area — was recently listed as the most popular band in that Ohio city.
Their Arlo McKinley & The Lonesome Sound album is darn good, featuring a great country lead voice from McKinley with great backing vocals and band. It might remind you a bit of Whiskeytown.
Sure enough, Arlo McKinley & The Lonesome Sound list Whiskeytown among the band’s influences, along with Neil Young, The Band, Otis Reading, Circle Jerks, The Ramones, Larry Sparks, Keith Whitley, Chamberlain, Whiskeytown, Gram Parsons, and Misfits, George Jones. There is maybe a little similarity to Tyler Childers, who is the artist I started with on YouTube.
That is a good mix of influences, and Arlo McKineley & The Lonesome Sound delivers. Do not take my word for it. Check out some of their music. One of my favorites is “Just Like the Rest.” McKinley’s voice perfectly conveys the heartache in the heartbreak song. The following performance is from the 2014 Bellwether Live at Buckle Up Music Festival.
Arlo McKinley & The Lonesome Sound is made up of McKinley, Tyler Lockard, Brian Pumphry, Zac Roe, Sylvia Mitchell, and Sarah Davis. Their live performances often concentrate around the Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia area. But with their talent, look for them in your neck of the woods one day, hopefully with a new album. What is your favorite song by Arlo McKinely & The Lonesome Sound? Leave your two cents in the comments.
The band released its