DOWNBEAT 2005

These are the best slow songs of 2005.



1. "The Lord God Bird" - Sufjan Stevens (npr.org). Sufjan (pronounced SOOF-yahn) Stevens' Illinois was easily the most critically lauded album of the year. It is the second album of his proposed 50-album ode to every state in the union. For each album, he researches the patchwork towns and terrains of each state looking for stories - - sometimes just pieces of stories - - to put to music. Really, it all sounds like something you'd hear about on NPR, and that, in fact, is where this song comes from. Desiring to see this process in action, NPR asked Stevens to write a song about the recent re-discovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker in the swamps near Brinkley, Arkansas. (Presumed extinct, the bird is also known as "The Lord God Bird" due to its grand appearance). Here is the breathtaking result.

Lyric: "In the Delta sun, down in Arkansas/ it's the Great God Bird, with it's altar call."

Sufjan Stevens' Official Site
Stevens' record label site, including several free downloads

2. "It'll All Work Out" - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (Elizabethtown: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Upon his acceptance of the Billboard Century Award this year, Tom Petty said, "I'll endeavor to deserve it and may I remind you that this ain't the end. I can still kick some ass. God bless you." Yes, but in this song, the ass-kicking is very gentle.

Lyric: "Now the wind is high and the rain is heavy, and the water's rising in the levee/ Still I think of her when the sun goes down, it never goes away, but it all works out."

Tom Petty's site

3. "Jezebel" - Iron & Wine (Woman King EP) This song seems to be about the biblical story of Queen Jezebel, a wicked queen who was thrown out of a window by her own servants, then trampled by horses and eaten by dogs (read it for yourself - - 2 Kings 9:30-34). Sam Beam, who essentially is Iron & Wine, twists the story in his own inimitable way by re-telling it from the perspective of one who actually loves the queen.

Lyric: "Who's seen Jezebel? She was certainly the spark for all I've done/ The window was wide, she could see the dogs come running/ Sayin "Wait! We swear we'll love you more! And wholly! Jezebel, it is we, we that you are for only."

Iron & Wine's site


4. "Concerning the UFO Sighting Near Highland, Il." - Sufjan Stevens (Illinois) In January of 2000, a UFO was sighted by dozens of people near the town of Highland, Il. (just across the river from St. Louis). Witnesses described a triangular craft with three lights moving slowly over the town as it drifted toward neighboring Lebanon. Here Stevens takes this story and brilliantly, perfectly expresses the delicate mystery of it . . . the same mystery and the same hope for the transcendent that is maybe behind all UFO sightings.

Lyric: Here is the entire song - - "When the revenant came down, we couldn't imagine what it was/ In the spirit of three stars, the alien thing that took its form/ Then to Lebanon, oh God/ the flashing at night, the sirens grow and grow/ Oh history involved itself!/ Mysterious shape that took its form/ Oh what it was, incarnation, three stars/ Delivering and dusting from their eyes."

Sufjan Stevens' Official Site
Stevens' record label site, including several free downloads

5. "World Waits For You" - Son Volt (Okemah & The Melody of Riot) Speaking of the otherworldly, Son Volt's Jay Farrar seems in this song to be simultaneously summoning and prophesying the presence of God. A sublime and striking song that sounds at once hungry and hopeful.

Lyric: "In this darkest hour, a brave face will break soon, the world waits for you."

Son Volt's Official site
Download and listen to an entire Son Volt concert from NPR here.

Son Volt's Trace is probably my second favorite album ever. Read a lengthy review of it, including some of the history of the band, its St. Louis roots, and its pre-history as seminal alt. country band, Uncle Tupelo, here.

6. "That's How I Knew This Story Would Break My Heart" - Aimee Mann (Forgotten Arm) I've always hated concept albums, but this one - - which follows the tumultuous relationship of a boxer and his girlfriend - - has changed my thinking.

Lyric: "I drew a picture of you, you and your anchor tattoo/ And saw the face that I knew, covered in shame/ You drew a bird that was here, a kind of sweet chanticleer, but with a terrible fear that the cage couldn't tame." (a "chanticleer," by the way, is a rooster).

Official Site
Listen to more


7. "For the Brave" - Will Taylor w/ Slaid Cleaves (Collaborations) Slaid Cleaves' 2000 album, Broke Down, is one of the best country-folk albums I own, but his output since then has been minimal. I was glad to have stumbled upon this gem from the newest album by violin virtuoso, Will Taylor.

Lyric: "Brother won't you trust me for a little while; listen to my song/ There will be better days for the brave, there will be better days."

Will Taylor's site
Slaid Cleaves' site

8. "Warm & Tender Love" - Caitlin Cary & Thad Cockrell (Begonias) There is a rich country music tradition of classic duet pairs: George Jones & Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash & June Carter, Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris. Add Cary & Cockrell to the group. Begonias is all bittersweetness and beauty, witnessed here by their cover of Percy Sledge's soul-drenched hit from 1966.

Lyric: "I have loved you a long, long time/ Darlin please say you'll be mine/ Let me wrap you in my warm and tender love."

Cary & Cockrell's Official site

9. "Saturday" - Josh Rouse (Nashville) Year after year, Rouse's songs appear on every one of these things that I put together. There's a reason for that you know.

Lyric: "Saturday I'm on that stage, I'm feelin down and blue/ Saturday I'm on that plane, I'm flyin home to you."

Rouse's Official site

10. "Dead Man's Will" - Iron & Wine w/ Calexico (In the Reins) Harriet Beecher Stowe once said, "The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone." This song is about that, begging the semi-rhetorical question: what does it mean to lose your love inside yourself?

Lyric: "May my love reach you all/ I lost it in myself and buried it too long/ Now that I've come to fall, please say it's not too late now that I'm dead and gone."

Iron & Wine's site
Calexico' site

11. "Breathe Me" - Sia (Six Feet Under: Everything Ends soundtrack) I've never seen the HBO show Six Feet Under and I don't know much about Sia. This makes me want to learn more about both.

Lyric: "Be my friend/ Hold me, wrap me up/ Unfold me, I am small/ I'm needy, warm me up/ And breathe me."

Sia's Official site

12. "Dear John" - Ryan Adams & the Cardinals w/ Norah Jones (Jacksonville City Nights) There is something haunted about this song. It sounds like it was recorded in a big, cold room. The "oh John"s sound like they were sung by a chorus of ghosts. Adams and Jones aren't so much dueting as they are wistfully mumbling the same heartsick plea to a lover long gone.

Lyric: "'Cause you're always mine to keep when you're gone/ Two silver rings, one's on my finger and the other one's gone/ Went underground with you, oh John."

Adams' Offical site
Jones' Official site

13. "The Nights Are Cold (acoustic)" - Richard Hawley (richardhawley.co.uk) Hawley's voice is like nicotine and gin. A song that makes you want to turn your coat collar up and squint at streetlights. Go to his site and click "download" to get to several more free downloadable tracks.

Lyric: "The fate of man is random so don't look down/ The towns and the cities are all burning down/ Your road is bitter like the whip of the wind/ You want to get to the end, but you don't know where to begin."

14. "In a Way" - Paul Duncan (Be Careful What You Call Home) What I like about this album is that it's more about creating dreamy atmosphere and elegant sonic texture than it is about making some sort of crappy artistic statement. Duncan just wanted it to sound pretty. As you can tell, it does.

Lyric: "In a way, I never will be far."

Check out Duncan's strange and fascinating Official site.

15. "Heartbeats" - Jose Gonzalez (Veneer) Continuing with the dreamy atmospheres, this song provided the soundtrack to the most mesmerizing commercial I've ever seen (see it for yourself here; it's worth it to download the extended version). Gonzalez is actually Swedish (born of Argentenian parents), and though his album is full of gorgeous originals, this one is actually a cover of a song by the 80s new wave band, The Knife.

Lyric: "To call for hands from above to lean on/ Would that be enough for me?"

Gonzalez's Official Site
Gonzalez's Myspace page

16. "Exit Does Not Exist" - Sun Kil Moon (Tiny Cities) Though Sun Kil Moon's Mark Kozelek has made something of a name for himself as a song interpreter, no one expected that the follow-up to 2003's soaring Ghosts of the Great Highway would be an album entirely comprised of Modest Mouse covers. And yet, it is. To mixed results. Despite several great tracks (this short one included), most folks would probably still rather hear Kozelek sing his own stuff.

Lyric: "'Does not exist, take an exit,' I hear voices insinuating/ Feeds me lyrics to this song that I am saying."

Sun Kil Moon's Official site

17. "Away" - Kathleen Edwards (Back to Me) A song of devastating vulnerability. Beautiful like an old, abandoned farm house.

Lyric: "Do you think I've changed?/ I swear I never tried/ Memory is a terrible thing, when you use it right . . . I've been away, I've been away."

Kathleen Edwards' Official site
Listen to an entire Kathleen Edwards concert from NPR here

18. "I'm Not Afraid to Die" - Gillian Welch w/ Willie Nelson (gillianwelch.com) There is only one voice more sweetly forlorn than Gillian Wech's. Yep, you guessed it.

Lyric: "Forget my sins upon the wind, and my hobo soul will rise/ I'm not afraid to die, and bid this lonesome world goodbye."

Welch has SEVERAL tracks for download (a buck a piece!) in the "Downloads" section of her site. Like this one, they're available nowhere else.

19. "Dancing on the Head of a Pin" - Chris Mills w/ Nora O'Connor (The Wall to Wall Sessions) Fragile and heartbreaking, here is still more proof that Mills is the greatest songwriter working in obscurity today.

Lyric: "As sure as the sun will rise or the rain does fall, love will find a way to make a king into a slave, a man into a child."

Chris Mills' Official site
Chris Mills' Myspace site
Nora O'Connor's Official site

20. "The Trapeze Swinger"*** - Iron & Wine (In Good Company: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Strangely, this year both discs end with songs over 9 minutes long. Though not planned, it is a splendid coincidence. This song is Sam Beam's crowning glory in a year filled with works of profound poetic beauty. Spellbinding and sweet, it is an abstract and unfolding love story told not only in words and in slow, enveloping rhythms, but also in instrumental adornments (climbing bass notes, slow-dancing pianos, circus-like recorders), which he delicately places here and there to add tone and nuance to it all. Like "Dead Man's Will," it seems to be about a longing to be remembered, but really, I couldn't say much about what it's about one way or the other. I just think it is one of the most sublimely beautiful things I have ever heard.

Lyric: "Please remember me, finally, in all my uphill crawling, my dear/ But if I make the Pearly Gates, I'll do my best to make a drawing of God and Lucifer, a boy and girl, an angel kissing on a sinner, a monkey and a man, a marching band, all around the frightened trapeze swinger."

Iron & Wine's site
Lyrics for the song, along with interesting discussion of its meaning, can be found here.