By David Schultz

James McMurtry has always sounded older than his years. Matching a deep, knowing, beleaguered voice with songwriting ability derived from his father, western writer Larry McMurtry, son James has been creating achingly beautiful songs with concisely but eloquently described characters since his 1989 debut album Too Long In The Wasteland. His latest album, the wistfully named Childish Things, presents McMurtry in an aging, contemplative state of mind, mourning the loss of his youthful innocence when happiness could be attained from such childish pleasures as a trip to Richmond to see the elephant at the traveling show.

Literary in scope, Childish Things' opening trio of songs lament the erosion of the happiness to be derived from the simple entertainments of our youth, ultimately to be buried under the weight and responsibility of adulthood. In See The Elephant, our young narrator wants nothing more than his father's permission to go with his friends to the county fair, using every argument in his arsenal to secure his dad's approval. McMurtry never discloses the father's answer, but the sorrowful delivery of the final stanza powerfully delivers the message that responsibility takes more from you than an opportunity to see an elephant.

In Childish Things, our narrator, now in his 40's, like McMurtry, has put away his lust for childish things and assumed the mantle of parenthood. Recalling his Aunt Clara, who always had the Bible close at hand in case advice needed to be rendered, a jaded McMurtry sings about no longer believing in heaven but still believing in ghosts. Although time has made him world-weary, a still hopeful McMurtry remains optimistic about the future, his own and his son's.

By the trilogy's conclusion, We Can't Make It Here, all hope has been abandoned with cynicism and disgust for America's declining character filling the areas of the soul once claimed by naiveté, wonder and optimism. Filled with righteous, vituperative indignation reminiscent of Lou Reed at his most cantankerous, McMurtry skillfully and eloquently elucidates the frustration and troubles of the working class and expresses his disgust at the CEOs, politicians and so-called rich elite who remain blissfully ignorant and apathetic to the plight of others. Phenomenally written, We Can't Make It Here can rightfully take its place with the poignant protest songs of Peter, Paul & Mary and Bob Dylan. Where Bob Dylan eloquently expressed how his generation felt, McMurtry focuses on what he sees before him to illustrate his dissatisfaction with this country's government and power structure that he feels has ignored, mistreated and disrespected America's working class. His imagery of a struggling America without access to its own leader seems prophetic in light of the current events in New Orleans and Cindy Sheehan's futile vigil to get another face-to-face meeting with President Bush.

McMurtry's singing, if it could fairly be called that, gives his songs a unique feel. In addition to channeling Lou Reed's cynicism, McMurtry also adopts Reed's conversational singing style. While his vocal limitations are noticeable, especially when partnered with Joe Ely on the Jimmy Webb tune Slew Foot, McMurtry's lack of range does not detract from his songs. Quite the opposite, his low, comforting voice gives his songs a warm, old-fashioned, intimate feel best typified on the album’s finale, Holiday. With cinematic breadth, McMurtry describes various scenes, including an Iowa guardsman's childhood memories of soldiers returning from Vietnam to the same airport in which he awaits his departure to Iraq, and paints a cinematic picture of the restlessness inside us that is as "deadly as Texans on ice."

Childish Things defies classification, but it wouldn't be an injustice to call it a kissin' cousin of a country album. The difficulty stems from McMurtry's gift of investing potentially pedestrian fare, like Memorial Day and Six Year Drought, with a cerebral intensity absent from traditional country music, transforming them beyond simple little throwaway tunes. McMurtry's prior albums have been inconsistent efforts, usually containing three or four extraordinary songs strewn amidst unremarkable filler material. Centering the album on the unifying theme of how quickly our lives become burdened with unavoidable responsibilities, McMurtry's Childish Things is anything but childish. To the contrary, McMurtry's latest is his finest, most mature album to date.

Labels: James McMurtry