Inevitable Loss and Lamenting
As a music fan of Conway Twitty – for more on this, read my memoir extract lower down – this isn’t a favourite album, but the cover image intrigues for its casualness, and far less 'fashionably' so compared with these two others
The title track on the album is a perky, formulaic number, more in the storytelling than the melody – though I do warm to the lyrically philosophical musings on ‘we are not strangers’ because he has known the person he's attracted to already in his mind: a further contribution to the history of ontological explorations.
A track I do particularly like is the sassy Talkin’ ‘Bout You with its rockier echo and hot harmonica, the fiddle swerving in and out, up and down – leading up to its later riff. It’s all in the backing musicians. Next I’m Used to Losing You is classic Twitty with the plaintive storyline and empathetic pedal steel where loss is cried in wail and moan. And the resignation of the narrative So let me know what you decide to do / You can go or stay, I'm used to losing you is also classic Country lamenting.
The lyric from next The Reason Why I’m Here strikes a more defiant tone – though this too is about loss but the gain of another – and the balance is struck: the ending a classic Conway spoken line,
They
all think that I just barely know you
They'll all say I'm forward fresh and crude
But they don't know that you've been thinking 'bout me
The same way I've been thinking about you.
Leona is beautiful – a tale of hope and holding on: and tragic inevitability.
I’m not suggesting you go out and get the album, but it wouldn’t hurt anyone.
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