Chris Smither: "Killing the Blues"

Here's a song I had on constant rotation last week. I first heard it on John Prine's 1979 album, Pink Cadillac, which I bought when it came out, being a huge Prine fanatic at the time. The Chicago-based Prine was one of the greatest artists of the 70s singer-songwriter movement but this was a covers album. So when I heard "Killing the Blues," I found the the melody and words to be so indelible and felicitous that I figured it had to be an old Patsy Cline song or something like that. You know, that kind of older country music that has some jazz overtones. And there it stood in my mind until my current re-engagement with the song when I dug a little deeper and discovered it was written by journeyman roots music bass player Rowland Salley in 1977.

I think Prine's might be the first cover. Indeed, many subsequent people covering it call it a "John Prine song." And who knows how many times it's been covered. Dozens? The most prominent somewhat-recent cover was on the Robert Plant - Alison Krauss album. For my money, their duet version glosses over the emotion of the song a bit. They should have each taken an individual verse to let the texture of the solo voice come through. Their version is gorgeous, but perhaps a tad too pretty. Shawn Colvin does a terrific version, but I couldn't find a live video with good enough quality to post.

Before I talk about the Chris Smither version I'm posting here, let's talk about the song itself for a moment. What's cool about the tune is that the melody is equally strong in the verse and chorus, but the verse nevertheless serves to convey us inevitably to the chorus, when the words go "Somebody said they saw me." It's striking how the words of the chorus are as seemingly triumphant as the melody is melancholy. There seems to be a mismatch. But after a few listenings I figured out that, yes, someone did see him "swinging the world by the tail." There was a time when he was in that bulletproof, god-like phase of new love. However, as the verses progress they tell us that he has been rejected and that the time of miraculous love has passed. So each time the chorus comes around it's like a beautiful, tragic memory, one I'm guessing he wouldn't trade despite the pain. Appropriate that the very first verse comes across like a mystical vision.

Chris Smither is an elder statesman of the Boston-area roots music community, with his participation dating back to the Club 47 - Club Passim days in Cambridge, when Bonnie Raitt was a Radcliffe girl and a part of the scene. Chris has probably been able to pay his rent off of her cover of his "Love Me Like a Man." He's a master of the fingerpicking style of acoustic guitar playing and an artist of the first order. His vocals and guitar present as an integrated, and, in this case, devastating, whole. I especially love how the guitar falls in and out of unison with the vocal line at certain points. And how about his face? It looks stricken, like a medieval painting of a martyred saint. Yeah, he's seen some things, and he's here to tell us about them.

Killing the Blues

Leaves were falling just like embers
In colors red and gold, they set us on fire
Burning just like a moonbeam in our eyes

Somebody said they saw me
Swinging the world by the tail
Bouncing over a white cloud
Killing the blues

Now I'm guilty of something I hope you never do
Because there is nothing
Sadder than losing yourself in love

Somebody said they saw me
Swinging the world by the tail
Bouncing over a white cloud
Killing the blues

Now you ask me just to leave you
To go out on my own and get what I need to
You want me to find what I've already had

Somebody said they saw me
Swinging the world by the tail
Bouncing over a white cloud
Killing the blues