Josh Rouse’s Nashville, released in 2005, is the perfect album to listen to while driving home to a beautiful setting sun after a long day’s work. The album has such a perfect relaxing feel that always seems to make me feel perfectly content.
Rouse is a very prolific American songwriter that seems to never run out of great material. Josh seems to drop either an album or an EP every year, none of them lacking in substance. His first “mainstream” album, 1972, featured songs inspired by the year of his birth, and is also worth checking out. After releasing a live CD, Josh and his wife began having marital problems and ended up divorcing. As a result of his divorce, Josh decided to begin a new life in Puerto de Santa Maria in Spain. Yet, before he left, he decided to make a goodbye CD to his beloved city of Nashville, where he had spent the last decade.
Full of slide guitar and great lyrics, Nashville has just enough catchiness to get stuck in your head for the week. Many of the songs, such as “My Love Has Gone” and “Sad Eyes” come from a very low place in Josh’s life; yet, there is a distinct beauty to being so bare and honest in his lyrics. Case in point:
“Love ain’t on my side / Love ain’t special / Love ain’t great / Lost in a fog / But I’m inspired to find my way / Where did you go? / I still curse you to this day / I miss her smile / I miss her laughing in my face / Why don’t you come round? / Baby I’ve been so blue / And I sleep with the TV on / It’s the only sound now love’s gone”
Rouse mixes the great lyrics of Dylan with the musicality of Neil Young, with a bit of Southern charm mixed in.
My favorite track on the record is “Sad Eyes.” It begins very introspectively with only piano, yet morphs into a McCartney-esque orchestral jam session. If you recognize it, it may be because it was featured in a Thanksgiving Grey’s Anatomy episode.
Recently, Rouse has released two albums, Subtitulo, inspired by his move to Spain(which features a great Travis cover), and Country Mouse City House, which has a more poppy feel. Personally, I prefered Rouse’s southern stylings, but the new albums are decent nonetheless.
Move back to Cashville Josh, it brought out the best in ya.
Until whenever,
BD
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