Scooter Chronicles

Shawn Colvin - “A Few Small Repairs”

Tracks:

1. Sunny Came Home
2. Get Out of This House
3. The Facts About Jimmy
4. You and the Mona Lisa
5. Trouble
6. I Want it Back
7. If I Were Brave
8. Wichita Skyline
9. 84,000 Different Delusions
10. Suicide Alley
11. New Thing Now
12. Nothin’ on Me

Shawn Colvin’s musical roots are in folk. She is typically seen on stage with an acoustic guitar and harmonica. But this album has a very “electronic” feel to it at times. Sometimes even a spacey sound to it.

The album is rather dark, which added with the spacey-ness, is probably why it appeals to me. Even the more upbeat tunes have a dark side to them. The opening track “Sunny Comes Home” seems to have a happier appeal to it musically. But it is about a housewife who comes home one day from running around, grabs the kids, and then torches the house.

There are other tunes that seem to deal with a woman fighting demons or some sort of problem in her life. From what I have read, she recorded this album after a divorce. Though refreshingly she doesn’t go into Alanis Morrisette mode and just start trashing men. The album deals with the turmoil of relationships and life in general. It was probably darker subjects because of it being a lower point in her life.

The one song that really sticks out to me though, is the emotionally charged “The Facts About Jimmy”. It is a ballad, and you can feel and hear the pain in which Shawn sings with. It seems to center on a woman’s husband who is cheating on her and also has a problem with depression. Meanwhile, the wife seems to be battling her feelings for Jimmy, wanting to forgive him, and maybe also dealing with the ill effects such as her own alcoholism. During the bridge it really sounds like Shawn was crying and has to sniffle her way through it. Gripping stuff.

I don’t know how other to explain it, but it is a great moody album. For those of you that like Suzanne Vega, or maybe even Mary-Chapin Carpenter and early Sheryl Crow, this might appeal to you, too.