Patty Griffin: Gonna Take You Somewhere

Children Running Through
Patty Griffin
(ATO Records)

Patty Griffin's voice is a powerful instrument equally capable of lifting you off your feet or boring a hole to the pit of your soul. On her sixth album, "Children Running Through," the Austin-based Griffin does a bit of both, guiding a journey through life's pain and pleasure with a perfect marriage of compelling lyrics and complimentary arrangements.

It's hard to determine if Griffin's narration is first-person, finely tuned fiction or something in between. In the end it doesn't matter, because the themes are universal. Everybody loves. Everybody loses. And whether their trip is long or short, everybody reaches the end of the line.

Griffin has a history of writing strong material for herself and for other artists (Dixie Chicks, Emmylou Harris, Solomon Burke), but on "Children Running Through," which she co-produced with Mike McCarthy, she scales new heights. The musical choices stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the lyrics. As a result, the songs, particularly on the first half of the 12-track disc, are even greater than the sum of their estimable parts.

"Children Running Through" opens with an atmosphere soaked in somber, smoky after-hours jazz on the melancholy "You'll Remember," in which Griffin tries to reassure a significant other (and perhaps herself) that one day they will recall the happier times. You might not find yourself convinced.

The downer doesn't last. The pace picks up immediately on the funky, horn-accented "Stay on the Ride." An old man gets on a bus that he's been riding for "years and years" even though he doesn't know where it's going. As the baritone sax croaks from the back seats, and the driver questions his sanity, the old man says, "I'm staying on the ride / It's gonna take me somewhere." The ride, of course, is longer than an errand to the post office or the coffee shop. This guy's no old fool. Sometimes a bus is more than a bus.

Griffin's songs are vivid vignettes that unfold as much like a room full of paintings in a museum as they do an album. Such a portrait is painted in "Trapeze." Griffin, with an assist from Emmylou Harris on background vocals, says much in a few words about a circus performer who "started with us on the back of a horse / Just seventeen and already divorced." Not one to be held down, she learns to spread her wings:

"Some people don't care if they live or they die / Some people want to know what it feels like to fly / They gather their courage and they give it a try / And fall under the wheels of time going by."

She will take other spills, perhaps at greater peril. There is no regret, though, only empowerment, as Griffin sings, "One of these nights / The old girl's going down / Hallelujah."

Defiance also drives the chugging locomotion of "Getting Ready." The fire has died for the singer, and she's leaving town on the first thing smoking. There is an undeniable, raw sexuality emanating from the driving beat of the savagely strummed acoustic guitar and peals of squealing feedback of an electric. It keeps churning forward for 3 minutes and change. And then, like that, she's gone.

Another strong woman (or at least an admirable one) is at the center of "Burgundy Shoes," which fondly remembers a motherly figure waiting with the child for a "bus that's going to Bangor" (Griffin is a native of Maine).

On buses, on trains, on foot and even under a big top, the people of whom Griffin sings persevere. "Up to the Mountain (MLK Song)" alludes to life's difficulty as well as the reasons for carrying on. Griffin sings of a greater reward, in this life or next, that lies in "the peaceful valley / Just over the mountain / The peaceful valley / Few come to know / I may never get there / Ever in this lifetime / But sooner or later / It's there I will go."

Griffin delivers the listener at the top of her musical mountain in the mid-album climax of "Heavenly Day." Building on a foundation of strings and Ian McLagan's piano, her voice builds as she celebrates simple pleasures, achieving a fervent gospel feeling free of melodramatics. Those prone to being swept up in the emotion of a well-performed song (count me in) are sure to be blown away by "Heavenly Day."

Likewise, the fully realized "Children Running Through" stands as a testament to standing tall and as a high-water mark in Griffin's distinguished career.