Now-and-then music (8)

Then Music
A Few Small Repairs
Shawn Colvin
released on October 1, 1996
(Columbia)

For me, the words ‘contemporary folk’ conjure up aging hippies and pretentious singer/songwriter types who are able to take the detritus of everyday life and infuse it with political pabulum. Shawn Colvin for years has labored under the unfortunate circumstance of falling into this category of popular musician, and to be sure, there is plenty in her music that would shoehorn her into that label; her songs lean heavily on acoustic instrumentation; they are very often narrative in structure like many folk songs; and her soft, somber singing oozes sincerity.

It’s not that I dislike contemporary folk altogether. Many of my favorite musicians fall roughly under this heading as much as any other, but when folk songs—or those pop numbers most like folk songs—fail, they fail spectacularly, to the point of being unlistenable. It’s not so difficult for folk music’s virtues to become vices, for sincerity to become naïveté, for outrage to become self-righteousness, or for rhyme and repetition to become statements of smug assuredness. Though they are more popular artists than folkies, I think of Alanis Morissette or Natalie Merchant as writing several songs of this ilk, where you just want to unplug the radio and brain kittens to death with it.

Shawn Colvin’s A Few Small Repairs couldn’t be farther removed from this, and whatever claims the collection might have to being contemporary folk, Colvin’s ear and style are so steady, unpretentious, and eclectic, you tend to forget about the folk label she’s been dragging around for years. Most important in this regard is the variety of influences heard throughout the collection. There’s nothing consistently folkie in her approach; she included a mid-tempo rocker (“Get Out of This House”), standard pop songs (“Sunny Came Home,” “You and the Mona Lisa”), and an alt-country number (“Wichita Skyline”), among others.

The variety of music leads to a wonderfully paced record that mimics the conflicted and mutable emotions evoked by the lyrics. The pace is quickened when she’s defiant and angry; slows down for hurt; becomes light and airy when she’s wistful. And the collection very much tells a story, albeit a disjointed and impressionistic one. Colvin herself was struggling at the time with personal problems in connection with a divorce and, perhaps, the strains of never finding commercial success. In this light, the disc, as its name would suggest, is very much about reclamation, redemption, and renewal.

There’s nothing new about the strategy or the substance of A Few Small Repairs. Indeed, our culture, such as it is, is well-acquainted with gratuitous displays of sensitive soul-searching in the manner of a talk show, but A Few Small Repairs is not gratuitous. Colvin shows great restraint as songwriter. For example, Colvin is more than capable of penning fine lyrics about the frustrations of domestic life from a woman’s perspective in “Get Out of This House”:

I spent seventeen years trying to save my soul
I spent twenty-three more down in the hole
Now my soul is alright, but I might get found out
I got myself this house now and I can’t get out

But in the very next song, “The Facts About Jimmy,” such anger and frustration is balanced against a male perspective of more or less the same dilemma:

Jimmy has debts and Jimmy has ties
That he can’t get out from under
If you look far enough into his eyes
It’ll rock you just like thunder

Jimmy broke locks and Jimmy broke bolts
Just to get himself out from under
When you feel like you’re lying in a prison cell
It’ll kind of make you wonder

There’s a wonderful gift for empathy in such a move, and thankfully, the album shows a similar restraint throughout. While some artists might succumb to the temptation of getting over their hurt by feeling superior to it, Colvin’s gentle, spry lyrics offer a tender resignation to the mysteries of getting by, day to day.

It is fitting that A Few Small Repairs went on to become Colvin’s signature record, both an artistic and commercial success for a songwriter who deserved such success much sooner. The collection, without a doubt, is one of the best of 1996 and, perhaps, the entire decade.