Tex, Don & Charlie - AllIs Forgiven

Thu 29th Sep, 2005 in Music Reviews

The album’s been a long time coming. The outing from Tex Perkins, Don Walker and Charlie Owen, Sad But True, was released in 1993, while a live album (Monday Morning Coming Down) came a few years after. In that time, the whole alt-country scene has taken off, and it’s safe to say that the new disc will have a warm reception. After all, Tex has – under the guise of the Dark Horses – been producing this sort of thing consistently for a couple of albums now, and Don and Charlie’s careers show that they’re hardly one-trick ponies, so it’s pretty safe to say that the content will be good. And ho, but it is.

The cover of the new album pretty much sets the scene for what’s to come. On it, a sepia trio – greying hair and filling-out included – look at the viewer, guardedly. Tex is holding a rifle, Don a straight-razor. And Charlie? A resonator guitar. All is forgiven – but say hello to our little friends, just as backup. And the sounds within are much more considered – a lot deeper – than their previous releases. There’s less of the feel of a trio emulating country music – Walker reports that their first outing was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek, though respectful, homage to the genre – and more of the sense of a threesome working together in harmony. There’s certainly a sense of age, of much-needed time passing, if you compare All Is Forgiven to its studio predecessor, and the songs really do benefit from this gap. This is, unquestionably, a mature work.

The production process of the album has been sporadic, too. The trio have been talking about creating this album for about four years, and have been swapping songs in the mail for the past three. There’s been two years worth of pulling the tunes together in stolen moments, until, earlier this year, they were laid to tape. The musicians on the recording, other than the three leaders – Garrett Costigan on pedal steel, Shane Walsh on double bass, Naomi Radom on violin and the spectacularly textured Jim White on drums – were given two or three run-throughs of the songs before they were recorded, giving the record a very open, loose feel. It’s like a movable musical feast, and the contributions of Paul Kelly, Jim Moginie and fellow Dark Horse Murray Patterson combine with Tex, Don and Charlie’s songs to create something that’s sprawling and open-ended. It’s a bit rough-arse, but that’s the whole point, it seems.

Musically, this is a very simple album. These are songs that you want to decode, chordwise, while you’re listening – as if you could get up, grab a guitar and bang them out yourself. And to be honest, that’s part of the appeal – this is the sort of music that you want to pass on. To propagate. To share.

Atop the simplicity, though, is the beauty that is Charlie Owen’s slide guitar playing. It’s simply unbelievable, and is equally as important as the vocal talents of Perkins and Walters. It cajoles, shimmers, and has enough bite to aurally turn the shiv that the lyrics slip in between your ribs.

The opener, Paychequed, begins in a slightly raggedy way, like old friends stumbling into a bar to meet. A slide riff plays over the top of a languid guitar, warmly, like a conversation. And it’s fitting, because the song speaks of a man who turns paycheques into wine, indulging the tiny bit of prestidigitation left to a man whose love’s gone away, living him with not much more than alcohol and seated reverie. There is, from off the bat, an acknowledgement of human frailties;

Well, maybe it’s time we were gettin’ on home
The sun is hanging low in the sky
And the wine in my head turns to lurid thoughts
And it disorganises my mind
But I seem to be that way inclined.

There’s the presence of other women, sure – but they can’t distract the narrator from his loss. It’s a tune of weakness with a bit of a drunken smile, and it’s an endearing entrée.

There’s a distinct division in vocal duties on All Is Forgiven. For the most part, Tex Perkins lands the role of love-song crooner. Any songs that involve a slow-burning, slow-dancing feel – the yearning Lost In Space, for example, or the guarded Words Fail Me (which sounds very much like something from the singer’s earlier albums) are given to Tex. It’s a fit that works – he’s got a voice that’s smooth, with just the right level of crack and growl to slide deliciously over waves of lap steel. However, it’s the Don Walker-sung tunes that tend towards the more explicitly narrative. They’re the ones that are a little more interesting, if you’re into the seedier side of life. The first song he takes full lead of, Jails, is a fine portrait of someone merciless in a position of malevolent power:

I build jails for those who can’t build their own
Got plans unseen, places unknown
Who can see the hand that tugs the line?
I like to take the bait… and leave the hook behind.

who’s brought undone by the idea of letting down his lover. Another Night In tells the story of disconnection wrought by a combination of whiskey, cocaine and pornography in tones that – despite the seediness of the character – evoke pity. But the shining moment on the album – and for my money, the best track – is Harry Was A Bad Bugger.

Harry Was A Bad Bugger is a largely narrative piece, reminiscent of Tom Waits’ earlier periods. In the tune, an aggrieved small town local speaks of Harry, who was – as you can imagine – a bad bugger all the way. There’s a feel of small town gossip, of noses rubbed in adultery to the song, and it makes you feel like you’re listening at a keyhole, vicariously. Women disappear, cops are in concert with the crims, and revenge is visited upon the man in a manner that’s deliciously left without explanation.

Now for ten or fifteen years we’d see Harry come or go
Like an ugly piece of weather, these days no-one seems to know
Why half a lifetime later, he hasn’t been to town for quite a while
And the rumours, they come and go around:
That he was dumped out off Coffs Harbour
Shackled to a fridge
That he’s buried in a pylon of the new Glebe Island bridge
All kinds of speculation. Some say he’s been seen
Looking after business interests in the southern Philippines.

There’s more, but it’d spoil it to reveal it here. Death, in the tune, is a mystery, and the music, with piano tinkles and lap steel slides fading out, add to the whodunit feeling delightfully. Walker’s vocals perfectly fit the song. They’re not tuneful when compared to Perkins, but that’s the point – these are the recollections of an older uncle, heard after a cricket match, when he’s in his cups. These are the secrets of an older man, not a show pony, and Walker brings the words to life admirably. This is close to Paul Kelly’s neck of the woods, but is shot through with a bit more darkness. Regardless, it’s the sort of song that you hope lives on, because it’s so well-observed. It’s proof that there are people who write songs, and then there are honest-to-God songwriters.

Another standout track is Whenever It Snows, the album’s first single. It’s a wonderfully melancholic tune that might well be the loveliest thing that Perkins has ever put his pipes to. A waltzing tune, it’s a gentle tune that seeps into your mind in waves. It’s unabashedly Australian, a portrait of love lost in a far northern town, with a protagonist whose lost love “wore mosquito nets like wedding gowns” and made a promise to be with him, whenever it snowed. The privations of an isolated life, where there’s only Indonesian radio for company, are recounted with a sort of careful recollection. There’s tenderness to the writing, but also a guardedness – it’s like the narrator knows why his love left, but still can’t come out and say it – not directly.

‘Cause you always complained about roaches and rats
Cicadas and cane toads and flies
But snakes in the dunny and dogs on the bed
Weren’t the only things that you despised.

The single most tear jerking part of the song, however, is the guitar riff that bookends it. It rises hopefully, only to have a tiny falling-off at the end into a more crestfallen note, perfectly encapsulating the process of a bloke who hopes, though he know it’s in vain, that perhaps that lovely woman will walk through the door again, suddenly, quietly realising that she won’t. It’s a wonderful song to love lost. The lover hasn’t returned by the end of the song, but that doesn’t mean that hope dies. It’s a lovely sentiment.

It makes sense that You’re 39, You’re Beautiful, & You’re Mine is a song donated by Paul Kelly to the endeavour. It’s a little mawkish, and could well come across as clumsy, but Perkins’ delivery leaps the hurdles of cheesiness with aplomb, imbuing the song with the good-natured blokeish goofiness of a note from a guy to his missus. It’s a clever song, and swerves songwriting potholes in its acknowledgement that in giving voice to our love for our partners, we most often use the commonest, almost trite phrases. We’re not all Andrew Marvell or William Shakespeare, and so, the song’s titular evocation of love is perhaps the most pure that can be mustered.

Contender for second-best tune (after Harry) is The Singer Of The Song. If there’s ever a song I would’ve liked to have heard Johnny Cash sing, this is it. It’s curious, and seems to be a further examination of what Perkins had looked at in his tune The Good Listener. It’s at once an examination of the sham of being a performer, and of the falsity of reliance on musicians for truth. In the tune, nobody comes off well – while audiences are duped by the singer, the singer himself is nothing but a blank, an empty shell.

He delivers all his words just like
They’re whispered just for you
But every secret he reveals
You already knew.

He’ll sell you the illusion
That he’s pouring out his soul
But when he opens up his mouth
It’s just one more empty hole.

It’s an uneasy listen. It’s nasty, mocking, and strangely honest, and a reminder that yes, you are a listener, and that the singer may not be the same as his tune. But there’s something galvanising about the lyrics, and when coupled with the simplicity of the instrumentation – funereal drums, skittering violin – it’s unstoppable. While there’s great performances throughout all of Perkins’ tracks on this disc, the snarl in his voice just before he launches into the third chorus of this track – where he talks about going home with your wife – makes this tune shine.

If there’s a bit of a misstep on the album, it’d be The Price You Had To Pay. The tune begins with Tex carrying out what sounds like a pretty ropey Tom Waits impersonation. Well, it’s closer than most, but it seems that on this song, the reference to another artist is a bit too close for comfort. The song fits in with The Singer Of The Song inasmuch as it’s an indictment of the performing process, with its lines about faking an encore for an audience by thinking of someone far, far away, but its drunken lumbering seems a little too forced, compared with the rest of the album. That’s a brief incursion, though, and it’s easily negated by the following track, The Healing Power Of Helpless Laughter which is the sort of song that you can imagine Van Morrison doing, in full-bellied style. It’s a real sing-along, drunken stein-clacking tune. And, curiously, one that reaffirms the fact that – despite the sadness running through the album – happiness exists, and is worth pursuing.

Perhaps the greatest tribute I can give to the lyrics on All Is Forgiven is the fact that as I’m writing this review, I’m finding myself loath to quote lyrics. I’m doing it, because they’re so damn good, and because they illustrate points pretty well, but I feel conflicted about doing it, because it’s almost like it spoils the story. The tales here unfold so naturally, and bring so much enjoyment that it brings to mind bush poets such as Patterson or Lawson: there’s that eye for fractured beauty, and that sly wink in the retelling. For lack of a better description, it’s fucking gold.

All Is Forgiven is a beautiful, honest album. It’s full of dunnies, buggers, love and loss, and it’s the sort of thing that beckons to you with a sort of tired familiarity. It’s like the pull that a country pub of failing grandeur has – the draw that pulls you to the bar, to listen to local stories. To put your ear to the earth and hear the music of the surrounds. It takes an Australian view of things that’s brutally honest – in life, there are losers, after all – but that’s also celebratory. These aren’t tales of hugely heroic figures, people of success and grand deeds. Rather, this is a collection of songs about the small victories, the everyday delusions, and the battered dreams that seem to become a little more tangible and familiar as middle age sets in. They’re the little people. They’re you and me, in ten years’ time. It’s not sunset material – there’s a lot of fight, a lot of strength here – but All Is Forgiven is a truly lovely meditation on what it means to be an adult, flaws and all. It’s something that’s rare in the world of rock. And though this album might lack the dick-swingin’ of some of its creators’ other efforts, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s somehow less hard-living. The rigours of a hard life are all over this sucker – only now, they’re wrapped in retrospection, in a confidence that only self-knowledge can bring.

Spend an afternoon, sun sinking, with this album, and you won’t look back – except maybe to remember the one that got away.

Beautiful. Just beautiful.