Album: The Stand-In.
Year: 2013.
One of my favorite pop music trends of the past few years is the plethora of dynamite post-Taylor Swift (or post Miranda Lambert) female singer-songwriters coming out of – or at least associated with – country music. Or alt-country. Or Americana, whatever. If you think that modern country music is all bro-country that gets the headlines, then you’re not paying attention.
Folks who have been paying attention probably know about Kacey Musgraves and (maybe) Lydia Loveless, but there are tons and tons more – people like Nikki Lane and Pistols Annies’ Angeleena Presley & Ashley Monroe come to mind – and I’m positive that I’m missing half of them myself.
And right now, Caitlin Rose’s “Only A Clown” might be my favorite recent song to come from any of them. A simple story of going to a party by yourself, it’s also highlighted by an arrangement that pits a pedal steel guitar in one speaker with a jangly guitar that wouldn’t be lost on Reckoning in the other.
But that’s not so uncommon, of course, but when she sings:
Put your record on
Let the band play a song
All about love and believing
Good for you
Cause if that’s true
Then it’s only a clown that’s leaving
It’s her big sad voice – that reminds me a lot of Kathleen Edwards, speaking of alt-country – over a big sad melody over a big sad lyric that puts it over.
Video for “Only a Clown”