SLAID CLEAVES
Sun OCT 13 @ 5:00pm
Tickets $22/advance
Slaid Cleaves. Grew up in Maine. Lives in Texas. Writes songs. Makes records. Travels around. Tries to be good.
“I tend to think of songs as the whiskey of writing. Distilled down to the essence, powerful, concentrated, immediate. You can take it all in and really feel it in just seconds.” — SLAID CLEAVES
The characters in Slaid Cleaves’ songs live in unglamorous reality. They work dead-end jobs, they run out of money, they grow old, they hold on to each other (or not), and they die. With an eye for the beauty in everyday life, he tells their stories, bringing a bit of empathy to their uncaring world.
On “Take Home Pay,” co-written with longtime friend Rod Picott, Cleaves sings from the perspective of an aging manual laborer, fighting looming regret and sadness with stubborn resiliency (and opioid use).
A couple hundred is all I need
If I have to, I’ll hit the blood bank
I’m bone dry but I can always bleed
I got some Oxy to keep me moving
It slowly takes some things away
The only thing I was scared of losing
She packed up and left today”
“As befits the times we live in, there’s a heavy dose of disappointment and disillusion here,” he says. But somehow, through the worst of it, optimism remains, as if to say, “Yeah, things are pretty bad out there. But there’s still some good stuff if you know where to look.”
One place his characters find solace is with each other. Traditional love songs are not often found on a Slaid Cleaves record. Here he approaches the subject less as a romantic gesture, and more as a world-weary appreciation of the one who’s seen you through thick and thin, as in the song “So Good to Me.”
Slings and arrows we did suffer
Scars, we’ve got a few, but who has not
Words of love and words of anger
Times of peace and times of danger
Never take for granted what we’ve got”
Described as “terse, clear and heartfelt” (NPR Fresh Air), his songs speak to timeless truths. “I’m not an innovator. I’m more of a keeper of the flame,” he says.