Reviews

James McMurtry Complicated Game

By Brian Rock

JamesMcMurtry

“Honey don’t you be yellin’ at me when I’m cleaning my gun.”

So begins James McMurtry’s 9th studio album, Complicated Game. With this line McMurtry is able to create tension and suspense and lay the foundations of a believable living, breathing main character. And that’s just the first line! The song, “Copper Canteen,” goes on to reveal the angst of a rural couple edging toward retirement. Within the confines of this song, McMurtry is able to sensitively and poetically address the trials that befall a couple who’ve been together so long, and at the same time reveal the unspoken comfort of their partnership that keeps them together. Along the way he deals with issues of encroaching consumerism, middle aged self-reflection, and the struggle to maintain your individual identity while still being part of a community – whether that community is a nation, a small town, a church or even a wedded couple. That’s quite a heavy workload for a songwriter, even for an album’s worth of material. And yet James McMurtry pulls it all off in one song!

Maybe his gift for creating such vivid and compelling characters is genetic (His father is acclaimed novelist Larry McMurtry) or maybe he learned his craft by being raised by two people who had so much love for the written word (His mother was an English teacher). However he honed his craft, we can just be grateful that he did. Because what McMurtry creates is nothing less than novels in song. He does in four minutes what his father does in 400 pages.

Whether singing about lost love, “You Got To Me” or enduring love, “These Things I’ve Come To Know” or chronicling the hardships of fishing and farming “Carlisle’s Haul” and “South Dakota” McMcurtry paints vibrant, sometimes visceral images of real people grappling with real emotions. Sometimes hopeful, sometimes despondent; McMurtry’s characters are always believable.

Here are just a few of my favorite lyrical moments from this album:

“Copper Canteen.” in describing a marital spat: “I bet the bridge tender’s widow won’t mind that I can’t please you. She’s got the run of the men out here where the pickin’s are thin and there’s not much to do.”

“Carlisle’s Haul,” in singing some straight up working man’s blues: “Hell, them crabbers cuss the weather, and they cuss the government too. ‘Cause nowadays crabbin’ and fishin’, hanging on to a pot to p*** in, is just about the best a man can do.”

“South Dakota,” a rancher gives his advice to his returning serviceman brother: “There ain’t much between the Pole and South Dakota, and barbed wire can’t stop the wind. You won’t get nothing here but broke and older. If I was you, I might re-up again.”

The production and arrangement create the perfect backdrop for McMurtry’s  imagery. Producers CC Adcock and Mike Napolitano bring touches of banjo, mandolin, electric guitar, piano, and Hammond organ to add texture to these stories. By changing rhythms, tempos, and arrangements they help make this album (almost) as sonically interesting as it is lyrically compelling. Most notable are the Tom Petty-ish groove in “How’m I Gonna Find You Now,” the Joe Ely boogie-woogie style piano in “Forgotten Coast,” and the Celtic highlands sound of “Long Island Sound.”

Like the perfect score to the climactic final film scene, all the parts of this album come together to create a truly memorable work of art. And as the credits roll, you reflect upon what you’ve just experienced: James McMurtry has given us a penetrating insight into this “Complicated Game” we call life. He forces us to ponder how the world judges us so much by our occupational successes, and yet, when we reflect on our own lives, the only thing that seems to matter is our relationships. And if we keep that message in mind, maybe life doesn’t have to be that complicated after all.

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