Ten Years Ago: The Head and the Heart
You only have to watch their recent Amazon Prime documentary ‘Live at Pike Market’, to understand that the Head and the Heart are a band that have been on a journey.
The documentary, a showcase of their enormous 2019 public rooftop gig at Seattle’s famous marketplace, weaves the band's story around footage of the gig. It tells the tale of a band that drew its members from across the US to Seattle and found them living on a shoestring but making music they loved with people they loved.
Fast forward more than ten years and they are still doing just that but in the intervening years have found their following grow exponentially, sold heaps of records, collaborated with classic artists and endured founding frontman Josiah battle a drug addiction that would see him amicably part ways with the band in 2016.
But before all this unfolded they were just a group of starry eyed friends who spent their days making music and gigging at the Conor Byrne pub in Seattle. It was in these heady days that they self recorded this, their legendary self titled debut, which would be slightly polished and expanded by their record label but, in essence, remained the same record they created independelty.
And what a record! A bawdy collection of bar room ballads that marries weary narratives rooted in American folklore with a galloping and unstoppable optimism. The results are breathtaking.
The album launches with the whimsical and eccentric acoustic ballad ‘Cats and Dogs’ that begins with little more than harmonised vocals and a softly strummed acoustic guitar before building up to a humming cacophony. The stream of consciousness lyrics suit the atmosphere to a tee.
‘Coeur D’Alene’ reflects on the depths of love powered along by a Coral-esque baseline and thudding piano melody whilst ‘Ghosts’ employs a moderately haunting piano riff and vocal melody to prop up lyrics such as ‘all my friends are talking about leaving but all my friends are sitting in their graves’.
The record takes its foot off the gas for a moment with the stunningly understated ballad ‘Down in the Valley’. A paean to the days of the travelling songwriter such as Woody Guthrie, it finds Jon Russell sing ‘I wish I was a slave to an age old trade, like riding around on railcars and working long days’. It steadily builds as Russell sings ‘California, Oklahoma and all the places I’ve never been to, down in the valley with whisky rivers these are the places you’ll find me hiding’.
The record's jewel in the crown (and arguably the bands most loved song) is the majestic ‘Rivers and Roads’. The song is a reflection on change, longing and nostalgia for days gone by. Anyone who has left school and home for university or work will relate to lyrics such as ‘a year from now we’ll all be gone, all our friends will have moved away, they’re going to better places but our friends have moved away’ and ‘nothing is as it has been and I miss your face like hell’. It is stirring, emotional and swells from an initially gentle melody into something truly epic and unforgettable.
The second half of the record is just as packed full of bawdy and catchy acoustic melodies. ‘Honey Come Home’ sounds both vintage and contemporary with its emotive chorus and barroom piano boogie . ‘Lost in my Mind’ and ‘Winter Song’ are both soothing contemplative ballads whilst ‘Sounds Like Hallelujah’ begins gently with a feel good chorus packed full of ‘whoo whoo’s’ before changing musical direction completely with a plea for motherly guidance and an epic anthemic outro.
The record closes with ‘Heaven go Easy on Me’ which takes all of the preceding elements - barroom infused melody, gravelly vocals, jangling piano, and a sound that is equally old and new, rough and smooth, and sad and happy - and throws them all together to create a special finale to the album.
This is the great skill of the Head and the Heart and the reason this record is such a classic. It sounds instantly familiar and yet new and exciting. It makes you think, and feel, and reflect, and dance. It makes you sad and then just seconds later joyously uplifted. It is contradiction and symmetry all in one. It is a classic and you should go and listen to it immediately!
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