The Courage to Reveal

Five years after her critically acclaimed album Wrecking Ball, Emmylou Harris followed up with Red Dirt Girl. This was also the first album in 15 years that contained several of her own compositions. Sounding more like a rock album, she had once again left that familiar country and bluegrass feel behind. She has always been a great interpreter of other artists‘ work, and she managed to deliver that magnetic vibe on her own material. This album contains plenty of that sweet, soul-sad material that we have come to expect from Emmylou, but there are also gritty and edgy interpretations of her songs.

The first track, “The Pearl,” makes it clear this is not a country album as does track three, “I Don’t Wanna Talk About It Now,” with its Peter Gabrielesque palette. When I first heard these two songs, I thought Daniel Lanois must have been the producer, due to the big, dark drum sounds, and distorted, ambient, larger-than-life guitar textures Lanois is known for. Actually, Malcom Burn--who did an excellent job--wore that hat. It turns out Burn studied under and worked with producer Lanois on Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan and U2 recording sessions, so I wasn’t too far off.

“I Don’t Wanna Talk About It” has an appropriately edgy sound given the main character’s addictive emotional dependency, and the angst that comes with it.

“The devil is deep water baby
And I’m in way over my head
But I’d be drawn and quartered
If I could keep you in my bed
I can’t break this spell
I know the trouble that I’m in
But if I got out of the mouth of hell
I’d walk right back again.”

Beautifully haunting is the track “Michelangelo“ with it’s distant, reverberating guitar.

“Last night I dreamed about you
I dreamed that you lay dying
In a field of thorn and roses
With a hawk above you crying
For the warrior slain in battle
From an arrow driven deep inside you
Long ago
Michelangelo

Last Night I dreamed about you
I dreamed that you were weeping
And your tears poured down like diamonds
For a love beyond all keeping
And you caught them one by one
In a million silk bandanas that I gave you long ago
Michelangelo.”

The elegy to her father, “Bang the Drum Slowly,” was all true, according to Harris.

“Bang the drum slowly, play the pipe lowly
To dust be returning, from dust we begin
Bang the drum slowly, I’ll speak of things holy
Above and below me, world without end.

Gone now is the day and gone the sun
There is peace tonight all over Arlington
But the song of my life will still be sung
By the light
Of the moon you hung.”

Isn’t this what we’re looking for, that authentic place in them that also exists in us that we are incapable of articulating? Red Dirt Girl reflects that, and Emmylou Harris digs deep to find the expression that reveals her heart.