Daisy Duke – It’s All Good
There’s a place in North America where everyone who likes classic country and rock n’ roll records has wanted to go. Some saved up money for years, got their papers in check and went out and found it.
If you get a travel agent selling trips to this wondrous place to spill his guts after a few drinks, they’ll confess that these beautiful records have kept him in business for years. All the people looking to find this place have made him rich.
But that place is a dream. It exists in the songs of Daisy Duke and the great singer-songwriters who have inspired the Danish musician. And, while nominally, the place sung about in many of these songs may be found on a map, that’s not the way to find it.
If you want to get there, your best bet is to put on a song like Daisy Duke’s “It’s All Good,” close your eyes and kind of drift away. It won’t take long, and the ride there won’t be bumpy at all. And, best of all, you’ll definitely arrive. Once you’re there, you know it, and Daisy Duke’s voice will be singing about an America that’s always been prettier, more innocent, and hopeful in dreams.
Will Rainier – Shapes in the Clouds
You’re unlikely to find a great sense of humour in a person whose life is wonderfully put together. And, you’re unlikely to find great stories while working in an office and making the same trip home every day without exception.
The universe takes care of everyone according to their talent and abilities. The people likely to have the best lines, to think up the best jokes, are the ones, typically, being most often and cruelly tempted by fate, as Will Rainier seems to have been.
But it all works out in one way or another. People don’t just start thinking up songs with the sole purpose of singing them out of joy. Nowadays, they write them as a way to push away the despair or help with somebody else’s heavy burdens.
Will Rainier knows how to crack jokes and where to find the kind of people who’ll want to hear them. “Shapes in the Clouds” proves that another of Rainier’s talents is writing country-infused songs that are both innocent-sounding and completely cynical about the way the world’s going to end up. This is not the work of a man who’s always taken the first bus home after work in an office.
