Transcendental Blues

Steve Earle

album cover

A Honky-Tonk Texan Makes like Emerson

A note introducing these fifteen songs from Steve Earle begins: "I have spent most of my life (like most people) avoiding transcendence at all costs." After looking for loopholes and easy escapes, he explains, he concludes that transcendence is "being still enough long enough to know when it's time to move on." These songs reflect his change in attitude. In them, he confesses to large (and petty) jealousies, weighs the moral repercussions of running away from problems, and ponders devotion and betrayal and all manner of romance-related suffering.

Earle knows a bit about rough patches. After taking the music world by storm with the unexpected combination of Texas grit and Springsteen myth that marked his debut Guitar Town (1986), the singer, songwriter, and guitarist, who's been married six times, became addicted to heroin and cocaine. At one point, after The Hard Way, he stopped recording for five years, and spent some time in jail. Following rehab, he became more aggressive about musical exploration, releasing a series of albums that are loaded with tales of sin and redemption, and are musically eclectic to a fault.

Range-wise, Transcendental Blues is as ambitious as any of them—there are Celtic songs and bluegrass rambles and hard rockers. Yet unlike the earlier efforts, it's remarkably integrated, a series of finely wrought compositions that draw from rock and country, psychedelic folk, and Sufi mystic music as needed. The lyrics are sharp and often self-recriminating, in the manner of Earle's mentor, friend, and sometime songwriting partner Townes Van Zandt (see p. 801). But the musical frameworks are snappy and bright, with the sonic punch of the Beatles circa Rubber Soul. If you ever wondered what a sweet little British Invasion pop tune would sound like surrounded by serrated grunge guitar and sung by a scrapper on the run from inner demons, check out "Everyone's in Love with You."

Genre: Rock
Released: 2000, E-Squared/Artemis
Key Tracks: "Everyone's in Love with You," "I Can Wait," "The Boy Who Never Cried," "The Galway Girl," "When I Fall"
Catalog Choice: Guitar Town; Copperhead Road
Next Stop: Son Volt: Trace
After That: Townes Van Zandt: Live at the Old Quarter
Book Pages: 249–250