By The Way, I Forgive You

Brandi Carlile's album, By The Way, I Forgive You, won the Grammy for Best Americana Album, a category that seems fraught with ambiguity. It's not folk, it's not country, but it's American, I guess. Anyway, it's a strong collection of songs from a singer-songwriter who has been around for a while but is just now coming into prominence.

The title is fitting. It's a line from the opening song, "Every Time I Hear That Song." The word "forgive" will appear in two other songs, and it permeates the whole record. Forgiving is one of the best things that humans can do, and Carlile recognizes that.

That first song is about a lover that Carlile has forgiven but not completely forgotten:

"A love song was playing on the radio
It made me kind of sad because it made me think of you
And I wonder how you're doing but I wish I didn't care
Because I gave you all I had and got the worst of you"

Carlile gets even more to the point in "Harder To Forgive," by singing "It's harder to forgive than forget." And finally, in "Most Of All," Carlile sings about her father:

"And most of all
He taught me to forgive
How to keep a cool head
How to love the one you're with"

The song that garnered the most attention was "The Joke," which was nominated for a Grammy for Best Song and Record Of The Year, and is an inspirational tribute to those who are different:

'They can kick dirt in your face
Dress you down, and tell you that your place
Is in the middle, when they hate the way you shine
I see you tugging on your shirt
Trying to hide inside of it and hide how much it hurts
 Let 'em laugh while they can
Let 'em spin, let 'em scatter in the wind
I have been to the movies, I've seen how it ends
And the joke's on them"

Carlile has an interesting voice, a combination of folkie twang and Broadway belter, and when she hits the high notes in "The Joke" it makes you tingle.

My other favorite song is "Sugartooth," about an eccentric and mentally ill boy that Carlisle knew in school, and tells a story that ends in sadness(can there be a spoiler alert for a song?):

"They found him lying on his bed
With a gun in his hand and a quiet head
His broken heart now is finally gone
But I know that he had the hurt for too long
To think he had fought it all on his own
Just to lose the battle and die alone
After so many years of feeling the loss
He finally made his way back home"

By The Way I Forgive You is a beautiful album, produced by David Cobb and Shooter Jennings with just the right combination of restraint and bombast.