Frontman for Edinburgh’s Broken Records, The World As It Used To Be is Jamie Sutherland’s second solo album, one he describes as songs with the sense that things aren’t black and white, good and bad, and that there is nuance in everything and a more “adult record, in the style of John Prine, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen’s later work”. I’m not sure you’ll hear them as particularly evident influences, but more as underlying colours, the album opening with the sprightly harmonica blowing Start Again, one of several to feature a string quintet, about putting the hurt and destructiveness behind and rekindling a love that burned too low to sustain (“I keep myself from the pages of love/Too scared to pick up the pen/I think of you, and the pain that we shared/Again and again and again/We could drink for days/ Cause we’re scared of growing old/Oh hold me/ Tell me/Everything you know/And we’ll start again”).
If that burns the fuel of hope while sounding a similar thematic note, the rhythmically tumbling, driving blues-tinged wail of Love Me Like You Did Before is one of regret (“There’s a weight to all this living/There’s a weight to what I’ve done/Everyone is always trying to leave/ Everyone that’s not already gone”) and a plea for rescue (“I can’t write you pretty words/Or put my heart to song/They won’t break beyond my throat/I’d only get them wrong/I just need a little help/Let me tag along”).
Nimbly fingerpicked, populated by “Ghosts in the hallway, ghosts in the stair, ghosts in the bedroom, ghosts everywhere”, Some Things Hurt A Little More bears the most obvious Cohen echoes, another song of reflection and regret as the years pile up (“I heard you’ve been calling, to see if I was fine, what would I say/You’d know that I was lying, you’ve never wanted to know the whole of the truth…I was born from loving you, I thought you were born to love me too/What a stupid thing to think or say or do”).
He breaks out the harmonica again for You Were My Friend, another song about the loss of those once close over time but here, as carried in the melodic jauntiness, with the warmth of memories of a bond shared (“There was a line that bound us from your heart to mine/That no-one else could see/It pulled, it tugged and it tethered, it loosened/But always seemed to reel us in/Yours is the face I see in the dark/Yours is the voice I hear when I need… And I’ll sing to the joys of the past/And I’ll miss you always to the last/You were my friend”).
Again fingerpicked, the longest track at five minutes, the folksy While I Sleep continues to look back, here, at a love lost (“What is a betrayal? A look or a kiss/The pinch of desire or the sweetness of guilt?/In the fullness of time, I knew you were gone/I clung to the shadow of love for too long… I dropped your clothes at your front door/And left before it all became too real”) but still lingering in the heart.
Connection also anchors the salty-tasting, piano-led Always Be, though here to a place, not a person, the idea of home and ties to a particular geographical location a recurring theme in his work, in Sutherland’s case, the Moray Firth coastline in the north east of Scotland, as he sings “I’ve no use for a place in heaven/I’ve no use for your words of god/Scatter my ashes along this coastline/Tie me to it forever more/et the haar, be my breath/Let the waves be my hands/ Let the rain be my tears/Lay my memory to sand …Walk with me when you can/And I will always be”.
A huskily sung fingerpicked folksy Americana with just Sutherland on guitar and keys, All You’ve Ever Known of Love is a snapshot of two lovers trying to work things out (“someone’s got a hold of your heart/And it isn’t me”) by calmly talking it over (“I know your son’s asleep/So let’s be quiet/Tell me who you love and don’t deny it/Maybe you should take some time/And let your heart rest/I will be just fine/Tell me everything”).
Summoning those Greenwich Village era Dylan cues, the tempo picks back up with blowing harmonica, banjo and galloping drums for the penultimate title track, which he describes as a song “worried about the state of the world and my kids growing up in it and wanting them to have that golden glow of childhood I am lucky enough to remember”. He sings of “The murmuring of ice shelves/ shifting tectonic plates of rock/The rising seas and falling coasts/The absence of your god” and protests to bring change (“You’re marching for the future/To protect your right to speak/ How can anyone speak freely/When your gun hangs silently”), and questions what responsibility his generation shares (“Patience isn’t working/It won’t contain the greed/I don’t want to look at you/And tell you it was me/Who took away the world as it used to be”).
Returning to the album’s opening note of hope, it ends with the quiet, piano-led strings caressed, gradually swelling pulsing strings fade We Will Rise, an uplifting close to an album that sounds the simple affirmation that “we will rise above the darkness”.
The World As It Used To Be (6th September 2024) Frictionless Music
Bandcamp: https://jamiesutherlandmusic.bandcamp.com/album/the-world-as-it-used-to-be