On The Great Unknowing you visit the beat up, the souls too broke to fight. You see them warning you: don’t bet on me, but don’t bet against me, either.
John R. Miller’s latest album sounds like the end of a long month of work with nothing to show for it.
Characters that wander through this work can admit that “you’re the only thing I’ve been doing wrong.” Tomorrow, maybe they won’t be as honest. There are no delusions here, but there may be a liar. It’s no hindrance to any of the music: it’s all the truth.
These are men who’ve been tired “all year long.” They have dreams that faded so long ago they might as well be our childhood. If they could only make a couple of dollars, they’d be okay. For today.
Note the Fender Rhodes and the pedal steel that pepper many stories. A slide guitar. All their interplay may as well be last night’s good dream while the day is a struggle, albeit one where there’s gas in the tank to get from one point to another. For now.
There’s something out there, somewhere. The skies out there are big enough. Forget that the “rent’s overdue,” Miller’s speaker has someone to call in “Tollbooth.” From this point, everybody thinks he’s a loser with your “crusted nickel[s],” that he’s finished, but he’s not. His life is unraveling, sure, but he’s got a prayer in his back pocket where all around are people who need to check their own damn driving. “I don’t wonder why.”
At least that guy can drive. The sap in the next one, “Think I’ll Start Over,” can’t even find his keys. Maybe hitting reset will bring some enjoyment, love, a “four-leaf clover” or a “nitrous oxide tank.” Either one will be fine. The sun comes up. For today.
What’s happening to the world that makes songs like this all the more easier to write? Where are the union jobs? What’s a man to do when next week’s paycheck’s already spent on last month’s rent? Who’s helping?
Miller smartly pairs these downtrodden lyrics, these men and women who are on the outs, with major-key music, beautiful guitar fingerpicking, and fiddle, all straight from the West Virginia mountains.
The best of the great bunch is “A World Away.” Miller shifts the gears. It’s not a song of a dreamer, but a realist, one whose day still has a “gentle breeze." As a listener, you know this guy won’t make it. Not with the drug abuse, the hospital stays, refills on pills he doesn’t need any more. He’s good today. He’s clean. The problem is that the “devil inside his head” always comes back. In “A World Away,” that demon is gone. For today.
Find more from John R. Miller here.