Bittertown: A nice place to visit

Lori McKenna
Bittertown (Warner Bros.)

Lori McKenna is one of those names I've been hearing for a while and meaning to check out. Just like I've been meaning to vacuum under the bed and meaning to hem that skirt and meaning to treat that co-worker to lunch. But the Lori McKenna item was both on the need-to-do and want-to-do lists, so while under the bed is still dusty, and my skirt is still unwearable and that co-worker is unlunched, Lori McKenna, by God, has been looked into. And boy, am I glad I did that.

At first listen, it might be easy from the drums and slick production to dismiss "Bittertown," originally a Signature Sounds project re-released recently by Warner Bros., as another pop country album. But McKenna's voice doesn't sound so slick. It's worn and gritty, more Patty Griffin than Patty Loveless. And the lyrics -- bitingly honest, visually as well as emotionally evocative -- would never fit in with the Clear Channel stable of "artists."

I speak of snippets like:

Mr. Sunshine you're so good to me
I could kill you before I'd let you go

and

They're building up big houses
Back behind the school
Where we used to drink our beer on Friday nights
And pretend that we were lovers in your car
We can't afford to live there
So we drive on past their marble and glass
Hoping that this blue collar town of ours
Won't ever lose its balls

In interviews McKenna says her songs are drawn both from personal experience and from a vivid imagination. The imaginative stuff is definitely there, but it's the real stuff that breaks through the best, I think. McKenna, far from being a rock star, is married to her high-school sweetheart and is a stay-at-home mom of five whose life is firmly rooted at home (the same town she grew up in) and in family. But that doesn't mean her lyrics are all rainbows and teddy bears. She captures the darker side of domesticity -- the cooling of once passionate love, life not turning out how you'd planned -- as well as the contentment that can come from living simply -- "One man, one town is all I need/A simple plan to guide me/Through the simple life I lead/I have seen the ocean and I have seen the sky/I do not need a big house or the ability to fly." Melodically, the album's highlights are the gorgeous "Pour" and "My Sweetheart," but the juiciest lyrics are on the faster songs, like "Lonestar" and "Monday Afternoon."

From her kitchen (where she does her songwriting after the kids are in bed), McKenna's influence is reaching wide. Faith Hill (I know, but just hear me out) records three of McKenna's songs on "Fireflies." Legend has it that "Fireflies" was pretty well done and in the can when Hill (alerted by someone else, natch) "discovered" McKenna's music and wanted to record the songs sooooo bad that she ripped up the album and started over. Ah, to be a diva. On a slightly less distasteful subject, Sara Evans also has recored a Lori McKenna song on her upcoming album.

"Bittertown" is a record for a slower pace of life, where slower does not equal boring or predictable. It's easy enough to be swept along by McKenna's voice (sometimes eerily like Patty Griffin's) and simple, well-paced melodies, but before long the lyrics will make themselves heard, one well-crafted snippet at a time.