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Ten New Songs
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Ten New Songs
Current price: $9.99
Barnes and Noble
Ten New Songs
Current price: $9.99
Size: CD
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"I'm back on Boogie Street," declares
on two different songs in this collection, titled with characteristic understatement
. (Previous album titles have included
,
, and
.) More
than musician,
has, since his early albums, tended to rely on collaborations with musicians to put together his music:
on 1974's
on 1979's
, and, notoriously,
on 1977's
. On
, his partner is former backup singer
, who co-wrote
on 1988's
and earns co-writing credit on all the material here. She has also conjured the musical backgrounds ("All tracks arranged, programmed, and performed by
reads the credit), and she harmonizes with
throughout. But all collaborators (even
) are in the service of
's poetic vision, which remains the dominant element on this elegiac set. After a restatement of purpose on
he turns in a moody set of reflections on decline, even alluding to fellow
's famous
in
: "And maybe I had miles to drive/And promises to keep/You ditch it all to stay alive/A thousand kisses deep." The songs are full of leave-taking, with titles like
and
accurately describing the tone, concluding with the prayer-like valedictory
which gently remonstrates with the consumer society the
has always engaged and rejected: "May the lights in the land of plenty/Shine on the truth some day." Even in the quietude of
's catalog, the result seems like a coda. ~ William Ruhlmann