Time Is Wasting - Josh Ritter

Time Is Wasting - Josh Ritter

2:57

See Here, I Have Built You a Mansion, 2020

Written by Josh Ritter

I love this side of Josh Ritter: alive, bright, rejuvenated and rocking.  It's an uptempo love song, and Ritter sings it with giddiness and exuberance, bounding through the melody with that nervous energy you get when you just can’t wait to be with someone.  It's written from the point of view someone who may have made bad decisions but believes himself redeemed by love ("I used to be bad, people used to get hurt / So bad that better would've still've been the worst / But you took me to the garden, girl you took me to the light").  I love that "would've still've," a great example of Ritter's ability to write demotic speech as well as ornate poetry.  Backed by a solid band, featuring a hard-driving percussion over piano and guitar lines, he conveys youthful energy.  Ritter has written deeper songs, sadder songs, and cleverer songs, but few capture the sheer exhilaration of being in love.

Harrisburg - Josh Ritter

Harrisburg - Josh Ritter

3:55

Golden Age Of Radio, 2002

Written on Josh Ritter

This is a dark ballad, with all the elements of outlaw Americana: a figure leaving his family, a small town, a train, the devil, Heaven, train tracks.  "Some say that man is the root of all evil / Others say God's a drunkard for pain / Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden / Was burned to make way for a train."  Ritter delivers the fatalistic, almost Scriptural lyric with a nasal drone.  The melody is simple, except for a melancholy mandolin break in the middle.

Paths Will Cross - Josh Ritter

Paths Will Cross - Josh Ritter

3:02

Josh Ritter, 1999

Written by Josh Ritter

Very early Ritter already has the hallmarks of his best material: literate, fast-paced lyrics; solid acoustic guitar work; a nasal, folksy delivery that evokes Cohen and Dylan.  This song isn't among his greatest works, but it shows huge skill as a songwriter so young.  I'm a sucker for verbosity and syllables that tumble over themselves.  "Though one time we floated free / We are pulled by separate gravities to ground."  That's a great way to say we're taking different paths.

Girl in the War - Josh Ritter

Girl in the War - Josh Ritter

4:23

The Animal Years, 2006

Written by John Ritter

A song that sounds like a love song but is actually an anti-war diatribe in disguise.  It kicks off with a Dylan-like jangle, nearly but not quite becoming "Fourth Time Around."  Then a Ritter version of that high thin wild mercury sound.  Highly literate as always, the lyrics open with a very chilling premonition: "All those words that we wrote / Are just the rules of the game and the rules are the first to go."  The Constitution is inviolable until some man-child demagogue decides it isn't and his sheep praise him for it.