Covenant

This great song, with mostly Brown's guitar and vocals, is a tale of how quickly we get used to things we didn't know; things that limit our existence. At the end of every stanza Brown repeats the line 'cept You and Me, leaving it to us to understand whether this is good or bad, or both. We never know if he is for or against the changes, and it is this dichotomy that makes the whole song.

Coming just after it we have Rexroth's Daughter, an epic ballad about an adolescent who remains unfulfilled, with a never ending love for a nameless woman known only as Rexroth's Daughter. It is a most original and timeless tale that could pretty well have been written a century ago. It's a classic song.

Things starts to cool down a bit just after that, and with song after song we get just second-rate 60's and 70's songs. Although these are all original songs, they sound like covers of any rhythm and blues band from that period. They could work well in a bar after two or three beers, but they just don't make it on an album, especially if we compare them to the two greatest CD masterpieces by Brown, Dream Cafe and The Poet Game, two of the best recordings to appear in the 90's. Even Further In and Slant 6 Mind were more convincing albums than this one.

We have to wait until the last song, Pretty One More Time, a love song to an old car, to have Brown back in form again. But then we get another mediocre bonus track, Marriage Chant, about not believing in marriage but wanting to marry that one person.... I don't understand what kind of bonus track this is if it is announced by a sticker on the cover.

Well, that's what you get, two great songs, a few good ones, and mostly a mediocre album that will appeal more to convinced fans than to newcomers. To the latter I would propose to start with the other CD's mentioned in this review. And maybe it's time for a "Best of Greg Brown" compilation for those who are discovering him after his recent tour with Ani DiFranco, and his high profile these days.