For their fifth full-length studio album, the first, 2019’s Christmas collection notwithstanding, in five years and the debut for their new label ‘Outside Music’, We Will Never Be The Same finds the Good Lovelies – Canadian trio Caroline Brooks, Kerri Ough and Susan Passmore – in fine fettle. Produced by Joshua Van Tassel and Christine Bougie, both of whom also play on the album, We Will Never Be The Same is another fine collection of close harmony folk-country.
It opens with the gently strumming Young At Heart, a piano notes punctuated refusal to let advancing years dull your spirit (“Years flying by with the babies/They keep me on my toes, bring me to my knees/Though I wouldn’t change a single thing/The weight of some days still ruins me”) and put an end to the good times (“We can pretend that we’re twenty-one/And lose ourselves ‘til the morning comes”), a similar sentiment of not settling for middle ground informing the steady, muted drums gradually building slow march of the crooned harmonies Tip To Toe (“I go nowhere or I go the distance/I’m no good at going slow/I stay up late or I see the morning break/I’m no good at in-between”).
Bubbling bass carries the motion for Keep Moving, a song about breaking free of emotional stasis (“I was stuck in stall and/Was about to hit the wall when I/Heard the call saying go, go, go”) and not letting thoughts of what might happen hold you back (“I could take it slow and/Wait for answers as I go but/What would happen if I just start to run/I could let my whole world fall and/Bring it screaming to a halt but/ There’s a call saying go, go, go”).
Another dreamy sway, Baby I (Say What You Need) acknowledges that relationships can sometimes cause each other hurt (“I need you/But the things that we do to each other/Aren’t okay”), especially when one of you is out on the road (“Maybe I’ve been gone too long/While you’ve been home holding the fort/Maybe I, I need to get back/See your face, feel your skin next to mine”), thus it’s important to be open and honest and talk things out.
That’s also the underpinning theme of the rhythmically pulsing I Should Tell You More, as the Good Lovelies sing, “I think/That I should tell you more/That we should talk of nothing/So when we go to sleep/We grieve for nothing”, and likewise on the understated ruminative strum of Wilderness (“Speak aloud the things you feel/Say my name soft and low/Say it now for me alone”).
The rippling undulating Latin-tinted rhythms of Blurry Days return to thoughts of growing older and loss of purpose (“All the days are getting blurry and they’re blending into one/All the days are filled with worry and my skin is getting thin/And I don’t know what this fight is for”), which again touches on stasis (“Now we just sit here and go nowhere/We are missing nothing and everything… What used to give me comfort/Gives me none at all/I’m tired of everybody/And sick of myself/So damn lonely/Like everybody else”), as it fades away on soaring wordless harmonies.
That’s counterpointed by the positivity of the folksy airiness of All My Days (“When I see the stars above/Hold my breath and count my luck/That you were the one who came to find me/Like the bird that shimmers blue/My heart soars with a love so true/For you, the one who came to find me”) where they recall fellow Canadians Kate & Anna McGarrigle, the puttering hand percussion and cascading chords of Not A Lost Cause a reaffirmation that love and self-awakening energises (“I’m not waiting anymore/I’m opening each door/Painting walls in technicolour…I’m imagining a sky/Of my own design/Rearranging constellations”).
That catharsis is also there on the sure and steady walking beat of Slow Down (“Dunk my head and I sink my flesh/Body numbs and I hold my breath/Starts to burn, I feel the ache/Then it lifts and leaves a sweet relief”), a reminder not to be in such a hurry and “Hold on tight, try to make it last”.
Accompanied by electric piano, the lovely Insomnia has subtle echoes of Neil Young and Jackson Browne; the title pretty self-explanatory as to the song’s subject about the pressing anxieties living in today’s world brings (“Thinking ‘bout the news, and the hate that people choose/It’s hard to understand such dark times/The headlines every day, they’re what’s keeping you awake/And you feel a hopelessness running through ya”), striking a poignant maternal note in the line “Little one asked you not to die, you answered that you’d try”, awakening to a new day as the children give you a renewed purpose (“here comes the spark who fires up your day/Every morning a fresh start, to do them right, to live with heart/In your arms they find the peace that moves through ya”).
Anchored by a slow drum beat, it ends with the valedictory piano accompanied Find Our Way Home, a measured anthemic number about finding our way through and out of the darkness, getting back, as Joni said, to the metaphorical garden (“Let’s make our way back/To the beginning/To a basement apartment/And late nights, willing/To live on the edge”) and keeping alight the fire that burned in our youth as it builds to the call to “Grab your guitar/Shrug off the weight/Remember who we are/Live on the edge/Put it in a tune/Shoulder to shoulder/We’ll fill up the rooms”.
We Will Never Be The Same is a rather wonderful album about accepting the march of time but not giving in to it; it ends with them singing, “I will follow, follow, follow you anywhere/We will find our way home”. You should most definitely let the Good Lovelies be your guide.
Good Lovelies UK Tour Dates 2024
17 January The Junction, Cambridge
18 January Town Hall, Selby
19 January Philharmonic, Liverpool
23 January Celtic Connections, Glasgow (venue TBD)
25 January The Met, Bury
26 January Town Hall Live, Gainsborough
27 January Greystones, Sheffield
28 January Saltaire Live, Saltaire
30 January Acapela Studio, Cardiff
31 January Lewes (venue TBD)
1 February St Pancras Old Church, London
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