Rachel Baiman
Common Nation of Sorrow
Signature Sounds
31 March 2023
Rachel Baiman’s father appears to have kindled the activist spirit in his daughter, something that is much in evidence on her latest album, Common Nation of Sorrow. As a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, he espoused the notions that have led her to sing some of the sweetest songs about social inequality you are likely to hear. The multi-instrumentalist opened up about the state of the world, saying, “Now my generation has had to wake up to the intensity of our own economic oppression. We sit around talking about how anyone affords to buy a house, and how we can get rich people to pay for our albums.” She adds, “The reality is that the vast majority of us are being taken advantage of by the same brutal economic and political systems. Maybe that shared oppression is a place in which we can meet and fightback.” Her truth is on display throughout Common Nation of Sorrow. Yet she does it with a style and grace that makes her messages easy to swallow.
Some Strange Notion opens with soft and simple guitar and violin as it puts forward a message of what it takes to create change, “But now, some strange notion has taken ahold of us/ It’s the common nation of sorrow, hear the boots march through the dust/ When so much pain is intertwined, there are none who can tear it down/ You cannot bury those already resting beneath the ground.” Change requires time, tenacity and generations to achieve the progress needed.
The banjo opening, Self Made Man, reflects her debt to debt to John Hartford for the fragmentary song she added to and, in a sense, transformed, “Will you tell him that he’s done everything right and that he could never take the blame/ for the people cast out and trampled on, just because they got in his way?”
While her truths may not always be easy to take, they make for an incredible listening experience. There’s a darkness to Lovers and Leavers that reflects her struggles before she was diagnosed with bipolar depression, “There is no middle, only highs only lows / It’s a beast it’s a burden, it’s a bottle half full.” At its heart, this song points to one of the problems with the American healthcare system, on which she openly spoke from a personal perspective, “Access and affordability of healthcare is a nearly universal struggle in this country, and as a freelance musician without employer health benefits it’s even more difficult.”
The genius of Common Nation of Sorrow is how Rachel Baiman can harness her songs in a way that generates something gently compelling, creating her calls to action, yet doing so in a way that never loses the appeal to the heart and common sense.
Pre-order the album here: http://www.rachelbaiman.com/commonnationofsorrow