Your Big Hands - Jolie Holland
Ten reasons why you should see Jolie Holland while you have the chance:
Up there with the best opening lines, the best verses, the best chorus, most singalongable:
"Your big hands, your big heart and your pretty mouth
saying all those sweet things to me,
it's plain to see you're as crazy as me -
it only seems to set my mind at ease.
Oh, I've got a bird of silver, I've got a bird of gold,
I've got a bunch of stories I should never told,
oh, I've got the second best, I've got the start,
you remind me of what I was shooting for.
I wanted to let love come in and save me,
oh, why you wanna break my heart?
I wanted to let love come in and save me,
oh, why you wanna break my heart sweet baby?........"
the best Honky Tonk Woman rifflift, the best post Ronson one-note solo, the most laconic vocal ever,
one of the most infectious beats, a track that gets you up in the morning and loosens you up at the end of a hard day by an artist recommended by Tom Waits no less, and true troubadour lyrics that charm and haunt by turns,
and the most incomprehensible line (not one of the on-line song lyric services has been able to decipher the words in the last verse preceded by "...standing there where you left me"...) maybe she's too upset to be coherent.
And that's just one song!
Music on the edge: risk it, you'll be kicking yourself if you don't see her,
"like a stack of bones all the winds cut right through".