Nothing [Including Family?] Is Gonna Change

What makes Justin Townes Earle such a fascinating artist to follow is not just how he lives in the immense shadows cast by both his father Steve Earle and his namesake Townes Van Zandt, but how he seamlessly incorporates personal material into his work. And it’s not the kind of “personal” that most singer-songwriters pursue; it’s not just ‘life-out-on-the-road’ or another relationship that ended up in the crapper. It’s the kind of personal material that asks for explication; you need a little biographical background to wrap your head around what Earle is struggling with in his fourth full-length record Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now.

The opener and closer most closely address the familial issues that are closest to home in Earle’s best work. His best song was (and remains, even in light of this great new album) “Mama’s Eyes” off his second album Midnight Movies, which is as much an ode to his father as it is to his mother. Although his father has long occupied a troubled place in his life (leaving his mother and taking him on tour with a still-severe drug habit), he has still clearly gifted him some minimal admission into the world of music and some part of his large musical talent. That said, as Earle has mentioned in many interviews, his mother remains the dominating parental influence on his life. The lyrics of “Mama’s Eyes” reflect that influence, as Earle claims “I’ve got my mama's eyes, / her long thin frame and her smile / and I still see wrong from right / ‘cause I’ve got my mama’s eyes.”

But familial issues do not fade with time; they are markers of personality. Earle acknowledges this from the opening line of “Am I That Lonely Tonight?,” the first track on the album: “I hear my father on the radio / singing ‘take me home again.’” His father is a continuous presence in his life and he cannot disregard his father’s presence, given that they both occupy the same folk/rock/country circuit. Both his father and his mother appear on the final track “Movin’ On,” which is by far the most powerful track on the album.

A slow country shuffle that picks up speed as it delves further and further in Earle’s life, it explores the caustic relationship between himself, his mother, and his father. I don’t know that there has been better lyric written about divorce from the perspective of the child: “And then she asks me how my father’s been / and we both pretend we don’t know why.” But the song doesn’t stop there; Earle can’t help himself from digging deeper. He imagines journeying back in time and being, first, at the moment that his parents met and, second, at the moment when “[his] father broke [his] mother’s heart in half.” The chorus of the song sways to the definitely half-hearted assertion from Earle that he’s “trying to move on.” While I don’t doubt that he’s trying, it’s hard to say whether or not he’s making any progress.

There’s a self-reflexive question involved there: as much as he tries to get away from his familiar troubles, should he really want to? As troublesome as the issues are (and as callous as I feel in suggesting this), there is a certain impetus that might sway a singer-songwriter like Earle to dwell a little further on these problems in his past, given the fertile lyrical and melodic territory they have provided. Of course, you can accuse me of being callous, but I don’t think it’s too hard to imagine. I’ve heard enough small-time singer-songwriters wallow in self-pity, tapping that vein to indulge their songwriting…is it so hard to believe that big-league (i.e. ‘better’) songwriter like Earle wouldn’t do something of the same?