Bradley's Buzz

bub94 Rosanne Cash – Rosie Strikes Back
September 2007

First, before I get chastised over loving country or anything like that let me just say I frickin’ love Rosanne Cash. In fact I had no idea how much I loved her until the release of her album Black Cadillac last year. I had a real appreciation for her since I found a used copy of her greatest hits on cassette around 1999 but it wasn’t until I started reading about her and most importantly, listening to every single song she recorded that I realized how cool, how relevant, how insanely talented and how important she is to music.

I know people are probably thinking I’ve lost my mind but it’s so not true. First of all in the terms of the pop hybrid of country that took place around the early 80’s it has to be mentioned that it was almost single handedly started by Rosanne Cash. Her debut album Right Or Wrong from 1979 combined more poppy elements than typical country radio was used to at the time. The album produced by Rosanne’s husband Rodney Crowell had a few hits off of it but it’s the gems inside the album where she really shined, and my favorite is the title cut which cuts to the bone about infidelity and how one is supposed to react to it – a theme Rosanne will put through on song after song. In fact that is just one more reason to love her. I can’t think of anyone else who lays it so on the line about her own life as Rosanne has.

In 1981 she hit the biggest cross over with her album and single “Seven Year Ache”, and the album contains great pop country hybrids including “What Kinda Girl?” with awesome lines like, “what kinda girl am I really what? I’m here for love but I ain’t no slut…” and two more hit singles which were a little more country “My Baby Thinks He’s A Train” which has one of my favorite lines ever, “He’s just like a train/ he's always giving some tramp a ride” and the ballad “Blue Moon With A Heartache”.

Her follow up to Seven Year Ache was 1982’s Somewhere In The Stars which again spawned a number of hit country singles but my favorite is one that hardly makes a lot of her compilations, “It Hasn’t Happened Yet” one of the many songs she would record that was written by John Hiatt. The song talks about how the man told her she would be falling apart and going crazy once he left and guess what motherf**** it hasn't happened yet. Okay, I added the mother part but it is a sassy little song. The pop/rock/country confection Rosanne was stewing up around this time is perfectly captured in yet another album track from Somewhere In The Stars, “I Look For Love” which is practically punk country telling the tale of some tramp who drops her hankie and looks for love.

By 1985, our girl was going full blown pop with Rhythm & Romance, complete with a punky rock hairdo and neon pink writing on the album cover. The first hit single “I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me” was written after she lost a Grammy award and ironically it’s the song that the following year would win her the Grammy. Of all her early albums I have to say I think Rhythm & Romance is probably my favorite. It is definitely in the pop vein as compared to the twangy country of other artists. “Never Be You” is a Tom Petty composed song she recorded originally for the film Streets Of Fire but her version was replaced by Maria McKee and she re-recorded it for the 1985 album.

Another pop confection complete with a little keyboardy synth rift, again from Rhythm & Romance is “Never Gonna Hurt” a song that would’ve sounded perfect on pop radio circa 1985. Also from my favorite Rosanne album is a piano ballad simply titled “My Old Man” which I’m sure most would know is dedicated to her father Johnny Cash. The song is touching and actually shows a real relationship in only a 2 and a half minute time frame – “Let him be who he wants to be/ cause he ain’t never gonna be young again/ Let him see who he wants to see/ cause he never had too many friends/ ask him how he remembers me/ cause I want to know where I stand/ how I love my old man…”

The best song on Rhythm & Romance is another John Hiatt composition, the total pop/rock of “Pink Bedroom” which tells the sordid tale of a spoiled girl and her place in the world of 1985, she takes valium with Coca-Cola, she wears her short shorts, she has her records and they’re all imports. I love it, and I love the song.

In 1987 Rosanne recorded what is probably one of her more famous albums, King’s Record Shop which launched four number one country singles – which though not all reflected on Rosie Strikes Back, we do include the cover of her own father’s “Tennessee Flat Top Box”, and the title track of our compilation – a little rocky ditty about self perseverance in an abusive relationship – “take the baby and the clothes on your back/ keep walking Rosie strike back” – it’s a pretty powerful little number and again one of those favorites that shows our Rosie will lay it on the line in the songs she chooses to sing.

In 1989 came Rosanne’s first greatest hits compilation (The Hits 1979-1989) containing 12 tracks almost all of which were top ten, if not #1 singles on the country charts. I bought the cassette years later and loved every song including the one here, her rockabilly-ish cover of the Beatles’ “I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party”.

There is a story about this particular album which makes me love Rosanne for yet another reason. When I was in Idaho, I worked for Tesh which was a school for mentally challenged adults with varying degrees of handicaps. One older woman couldn’t talk, could barely walk with her walker and just seemed to sit there not aware of much around her. During “Music Class” one day I decided to put up a karaoke machine and have the ones who wanted to participate in it. Well I never in a million years would’ve expected this, but dear old Rhonda practically ran to the microphone when I put on “Seven Year Ache” – the woman could only moan into the microphone but I think it was quite obvious that in her head she was singing the entire song. I left her the cassette tape when I moved to LA.

But I have digressed for now we come into the most important part of Rosanne’s career – the time when she was divorcing and fighting with husband Rodney Crowell. What came about during this tenuous time was the excellent album Interiors. A personal affair that Rosanne wrote and produced pretty much all on her own and an album which stripped the pop right out of her country. Instead you get some upbeat country songs and a lot of introspective lyrics, not only about her relationship but about others as well.

The most haunting song on the album has nothing to do with her marriage but instead is about the state of the world, “This World” opens with “I read a story about a little girl/ she was beat up by her dad/ she was 9 months old/ and he was a full grown man/ she may have been learning to crawl/ he put fist into her / the doctor said, ‘this baby’s gone she can’t be replaced/ Now you read a lot of things in the daily news/ but I’m laying awake at night wonderin’ what to do/ I pray the Lord her soul to keep/ cause all down here are fast asleep/ I want to say this baby belongs to me and you/ so you better wake up…” It’s horrific and probably true which makes it even more disturbing.

Also from Interiors comes “Paralyzed” an excellent little ballad with only a piano and a little ambience as she recalls hearing her parents fight on the telephone. The song is so good that I actually thought it was about her picking up the phone as her husband talked with another woman – either interpretation makes the song very powerful. The whole album Interiors is really something everyone should own - though I must admit when you're done listening to it, it does feel like you were a voyeur studying Rosanne's life - that's how personal the lyrics are.

After Interiors, our girl kept up the momentum of personal lyrics and small arrangements with both The Wheel in 1993 and Ten Song Demo in 1996. Having remarried producer John Levanthal, our girl was a little happier yet not quite serene enough to let the world get away with injustice. The happy part of the album is found in the title cut “The Wheel” and an excellent little ballad “If I Were A Man” is our reflection from 10 Song Demo which is essentially the songs she was working on for her first Capitol Records album but was pushed instead to release the album as the demos she was doing as her producers thought they were so good the way they were.

“If I Were A Man” is an excellent little take on what some might call feminism, “if I were a man/ I’d be so sweet/ I’d give me everything I need/ I’d be so glad to go this deep/ I’d change the way the whole world thinks…” and “If I were God/ I guess I’d know/ I guess my friends would tell me so/ it’d be a heavy line to tow/ if I were God…” I love it.

Rules Of Travel was her next album (1996) and it's an album I had received as a promo when I was working at a magazine and truth be told, despite pretty good reviews and help from some big hitters in the music business including Sheryl Crow, it doesn’t do much for me, except her self composed song “September When It Comes” which is a duet with Johnny Cash, and also one of the last songs he recorded. Interestingly enough he would die in September a few years later.

Which brings us to the end or the beginning for me, with 2006’s Black Cadillac album. During the making of the album – about 24 months of work – Rosanne lost her father, her step mother June Carter and her own mother, Johnny’s first wife. The album is a complete reflection on those losses but in a much better way than you might expect. There is no "whoah is me, how do we go on...” instead there’s real depth and feelings on each and every song – there’s even a bit of anger that seeps through every now and then.

Though I have to admit to loving each and every song on Black Cadillac, this compilation would only lend itself to so much so we take a few of my ultimate favorites. The rockier “Like Fugitives” with its details of the church leading us to hell, and everyone’s half hearted condolences about death; it’s a powerful little number. The title track is all about her father with the lines about a black Cadillac that drove him away, just like the black Cadillac he used to drive. Now one of them is in Heaven and one is here in Hell, while she also gets to reflect that there wasn’t anything she could do for him when he was alive. But don’t let the somber tone get you down because everything here is stated merely matter of fact. “Black Cadillac” even turns up a notch toward the end where some horns kick in tune to Johnny’s big hit “Ring Of Fire.” Musically and lyrically it’s excellent.

To calm down and reflect we have “I Was Watching You” also from Black Cadillac, it’s a beautiful little piano song that begins with her mother and father marrying while she watches from above, as “before there is life there is love” and at the end she is still watching and loving for “Long after there is life/ there is love.” Beautiful stuff.

Hopefully, my short story here about Rosanne Cash will make you run out and buy every piece of music you can get your hands on. From her pop country inflections in the beginning through her numerous number one country hits and straight to her introspective serious work, she delivers no matter what.

And if just cowing her music wasn’t enough you have GOT to check out her monthly story on her website where she’s just as apt to share an old family recipe as she is to attack the government for their insane policies. You just head on over to Mrs. L’s Monthly updates at http://www.rosannecash.com/monthly.html and she’ll once again lay it on the line.

Rosanne Cash – Rosie Strikes Back (bub94)
Track List:
01. Rosie Strike Back 02. Seven Year Ache 03. Black Cadillac 04. Pink Bedroom 05. This World 06. What Kinda Girl? 07. It Hasn’t Happened Yet 08. Tennessee Flat Top Box 09. Right Or Wrong 10. I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me 11. September When It Comes (with Johnny Cash) 12. The Wheel 13. Blue Moon With Heartache 14. Never Gonna Hurt 15. Paralyzed 16. My Baby Thinks He’s A Train 17. Like Fugitives 18. If I Were A Man 19. Never Be You 20. My Old Man 21. I Look For Love 22. I Was Watching You 23. I Don’t Want To Spoil The Party