Album: Rain on the City
Year: 2010
Of course This Perfect World didn’t make Freedy Johnston into a household word. We’re long past the age of singer-songwriters, and even guy with a misspelled first name and an extra letter in his last name wasn’t going to get around that plain historical fact, no matter how good his songwriting was.
Which isn’t to say that Freedy didn’t remain a helluva cult artist, and while the albums he followed up This Perfect World with — 1997’s Never Home, 1999’s Blue Days, Black Nights, and 2001’s Right Between The Promises — all had their pleasures, you could see the Law of Diminishing Returns set in.
But then Freedy basically disappeared for a decade, not re-emerging until 2010’s surprisingly stellar Rain on The City. Seemingly coming out of nowhere, Rain on the City was Freedy’s best batch of songs since This Perfect World, as exemplified by “Don’t Fall in Love With a Lonely Girl,” his best song since “Trying To Tell You I Don’t Know.”
Of course at this point, I have to assume that the only people who heard “Don’t Fall in Love With a Lonely Girl” were his ever-dwindling cult, but I guess I’m one of them, because I fell instantly in love with its dynamic chorus:
Don’t fall in love with a lonely girl
‘Cause you’ll never be alone with her
Don’t give your heart to a lonely one
‘Cause you’ll always wonder where she’s goneDon’t fall in love with a lonely girl
‘Cause you’ll spend your nights waitin’ up for her
It starts off simply, but surrounding the last couple of lines is a seamless mix of, building drums, pounding piano, ragged harmonies and soaring strings, and it’s utterly thrilling to me.
At the end, even Freedy is thrilled with the musical stew that’s been concocted, and emits a couple of almost happy-sounding “yeahhhhhhh” at the end.
“Don’t Fall in Love With a Lonely Girl”
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