Rabbit's On The Run

I have been sitting and stewing on the new Vanessa Carlton album, Rabbit's On The Run.  I have been chewing on it like a delectable wad of the most exquisite, new flavor of bubble gum.  I chewed it on the right side and then on the left, and then I even let it melt on my tongue awhile.  I decided that it is fabulous.  Really fabulous.

This is a huge relief to me.  I was wondering if I was going to be disappointed or not.  My intuition said I would be pleased, but my incorrigible brain gave in to paranoid delusions.  Then, on the Tuesday morning that Rabbit's On The Run was released, I carefully downloaded it and then went on a wee drive.  I listened to it in the car.  I listened to it at the gym and then I listened to it at home, while I was tending the garden and cooking a meal.  I listened to it over and over again, marinating in the vocals, the lyrics and the music itself.

I knew that I liked it, but the more I heard it, the more I loved it.  It coiled itself around my emotions and held fast there.

The album opens with the new single entitled Carousel.  I posted this song and video at the end of my last blog posting.  It's a great intro to the tone of Rabbit's on the Run, and it happens to be the song on the album where the album title comes from.  A reference to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass... "time won't wait, so don't be late, white rabbit's on the run."  Seriously, the first song gives you a great ideas as to what the entire composition is going to sound like or feel like.  It really reminds me of what a Shin's album would be if it were written and sung by a woman.  Who doesn't love the Shins?  It's a great, kind of folky/rock sound.

All throughout Rabbits, you hear a girls choir, pretty much on every track.  My only complaint about Rabbit's is that sometimes the choir tracks sound too distant.  Almost like they were recorded in an old barn and they the rest of the sounds were recorded in a studio.  It is a rather trivial complaint when you think about it, but as you're listening to some of the songs, it truly does jump out at you.

I'm not going to talk track by track, but I want to tell you about some important songs on the album.  The second song is called "I Don't Want to be a Bride."  Bride speaks to me in a very visceral way... it talks about how loving someone in a real way has nothing to do with a wedding.  I really love not only the concept of the song, but the lyrics and the melody are also superb.  Carlton's piano work on this and every song is just incredible and not to be passed over.

If you want a great preview of her amazing words, because everyone know that she is a talented musician, look at the third song.  "London" is my very favorite tune on the entire album.  The words are so wise and haunting.  They express so many abstract thoughts that float through our minds to make a bigger picture, a larger tone in our lives.  My favorite part of the song is when the second verse starts up, the music swells up suddenly like a rip tide, and Vanessa belts out this passionate line: "Got a knife-throwing kind of love, but your silence cuts the deepest."  UGH!  I would love to just give you the entire song, since pretty much all of the words mean something huge to me...so maybe I'll post it on the end...listen to all the words as they are incredible.

"and I've never been so sure,
that after all these years, all that I've learned,
Is that heavenly creatures never come.
They never come."

Other album highlights are:

Dear California... "Your face is like a paper cut to the heart, so I slip away while you sleep..."
Fair Weather Friends... "You didn't really mean it, so I don't have to believe it, if you didn't mean to do it then magical thinking gets us by..."

The last song I will mention is a really important song to listen for:  Tall Tales For Spring... "god rest his head sunday afternoon, the wicked in me is surely the wicked in you, we pray to a ghost that we've never met, time turns for a cure from the sciences..."  Carlton is a huge Stephen Hawking fan and he inspired the writ for this song, it is lovely.  It has this wonderfully, bounding melody that moves along like a circus.

I think that I've waxed poetic for awhile now.  The long and short of it is that you should definitely get this album.  Don't just check it out, buy it.  You should love it.  Smaller niche artists like Vanessa Carlton and so many others that I've written about, or whom I will write about eventually, have some amazing things to say and outstanding musical talent.  It's a shame when their work goes un noticed.  If you've been a long time fan of Carlton already, you may notice reoccurring themes in her writing, but the amazing thing about it is that she never gets boring.  She talks about alchemy often, gardens, moonlight and beauty in general.  She is the Stevie Nicks of our generation, and no less impactful.  Her mind is definitely a bright, magical place and I love how she ties her own internal dialogue into the music that she shares with us.

as promised... London...