Album: Vagabonds
Year: 2008
We will get to Gary Louris’s work with The Jayhawks — and my no-doubt controversial choice for their best album — in due time, but I have to confess that I love this title track from his solo debut probably as much as I love any song he’s ever written.
A big, slow, folk-rock anthem full of wailing harmonica, shimmering organ, plaintive pedal-steel and massive harmonies, “Vagabonds” fully reflects the sound and tradition of the Laurel Canyon recording studio where it was birthed.
And, naturally, that’s reflected in the lyrics:
Creekside and Husky are coming down the ridge
We’re growing marijuana underneath the bridge
Shaky fingers stand up pointing at the coast
Folky singers with cold harmonicasCarry on you vagabonds, everyone’s gone away
Carry on you vagabonds, everyone’s gone away
I’ll admit right here and now that “Vagabonds” adds nothing new to the tradition, and if you feel that this sound is old — or you never liked it at all — then this ain’t going to change your mind. Hell, even I can take it or leave it, for the most part: I’ve usually liked it as part of the overall oeuvre of artists — your Neil Youngs and your Warren Zevons — who have also done a lot of other things.
But the coda of “Vagabonds,” where pretty much everybody who lives in Laurel Canyon is singing “Carry on you vagabonds, everyone’s gone away” over and over and over while the music swells and swells, is absolutely and utterly irresistible to me.
“Vagabonds”
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