Lonesome Highway Review
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Lisa Cerbone We Still Have Sky
(Caldo Verde)
The city of Baltimore is home to Lisa Cerbone and her musical talent has walked alongside her work as an ESL teacher to international students for a number of years now. Back in the 1990s she released a series of albums that received wide critical acclaim, and even if career momentum was not sustained into the new millennium, her ability as a songwriter was established in many corners. By 2008 she had released her fourth album, a self-produced collection of songs that reverberated with a sense of innocence lost, uneasy isolation and ultimately hope that pointed towards a sense of redemption.
A number of these elements are woven through the eleven songs on this new release and the sense of space in the arrangements, coupled with gossamer touch in the playing, is superbly balanced and delivered with a quiet dynamic. Lisa Cerbone wrote poetry and fiction as a student and the discipline gained has certainly informed her sense of wordplay in these melodies and the rhythm of her songs. The heart of the poet still beats strongly and threads these vistas of self-reflection and wistful longing into the thoughtful reflections that these songs attest.
The initial assumption that the songs come from a deeply personal place is not to give due regard to the writing and the sense of observation of other lives at play. On repeated listening there are different colours unveiled and an empathy for the lost and lonely souls, disenfranchised and trying to make their way in this fractured world. Various questions arise for me, such as how do we define our individual identities and how much of our free will is determined by the gene pool that created us in the first place?
Are we perhaps no more than the sum total of our life experience, both positive and negative? The arguments will always move back and forth as we try to make sense of our decisions and our pretensions towards understanding this mortal coil and our place upon it. We can all look for connection and a sense of belonging as we sometimes grapple with feelings of depression and loneliness in the eternal search of acceptance and understanding.
The great talents of Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters/ Sun Kil Moon) are brought to this project and his innate musicianship adds so much to the songs and the overall feel on this album. His prowess on guitar, bass, banjo, percussion and vocals is richly delivered alongside Lisa and their subtle reciprocity throughout. Her central role in providing sweetly understated vocals brings much to be admired in the hushed delivery and the superbly timed guitar interplay. The songs are like short stories in time, full of atmosphere and interesting content in their delivery.
The branch on the album cover looks like a cherry blossom tree and the significance of this is in the short span of rich colour where the blossoms don’t last while the temporary beauty permeates. Lisa has stripped back everything in the songs to deliver such unadorned beauty and the opening Tomorrow looks at the emotional distance between a couple as they embark upon a lengthy car journey. The sense of separation is palpable ‘Maybe there will come a time, When we can speak about it,’ while the closing words state ‘We’ll find a way to be,’ as if offering hope for the future.
The song Mary’s Face is beautifully structured around a tale of religious calling. A decision to forego earthly pleasure in favour of a life of service and reverence ‘You take your place, In lines of men, Who left so many Worlds behind, For golden robes, And lives of saints, And the purity of Mary’s face.’ Such beautiful sentiment in the sacrifice. Cold Dark Night is a song that circles the spectre of grief and the many forms that it takes. The passing of a loved one, perhaps a parent, and the imprint left upon a life ‘I have to let you go, Your presence lives in me.’
Another form of grief is captured in A Song For Susanna and an insight into the normal life that gets replaced by illegal immigration and the constraints of trying to define a new way to live ‘ I may never see you again, Count the hours and miles, To your small arms.’ The Waterfront Is Safe tells of an abusive home situation and the need to flee to the city in order to attain a fragile anonymity ‘Peaceful silence can be so frightening, Not sure if you belong, Not sure if you can go it alone here.’ The humanity that pours through the delivery of these songs is beautifully balanced against the need to almost hold your breath until the song concludes.
I guess that we all find our tribes in different ways and our safe place can be letting down the walls to allow others access ‘Sometimes there are those, Who are kinder than our own families, They see you only, Understand the ache and longing’ some of the thoughts that unfold on Home For the First Time.
Do you recognise that inner voice telling us we are not good enough; we all hear it from time to time, and that parental judge can lecture the child within. The song Written In the Stars has an understanding of this internal struggle ‘ It speaks to you, In your sleep, It’s a passenger in the car, You thought you buried it deep, In the yard.’ The song I’ve Got To Get Myself Back To You speaks to that child of youth and to the need to keep that innocence alive and that spirit burning brightly ‘I’ve got to get myself back to you, Back to my favourite dream, I let too much of the world in, When I should have kept you near.’
The title track brings everything to a conclusion with the words that ‘We still have sky, The sun, the stars on our side’ so no matter how negative we may feel, there is always a ray of light to bring hope for a better tomorrow. This is a superb album with so much to recommend it to the discerning listener. Such wonderful artistry and delivered with both grace and equanimity. An essential purchase
—Paul McGee