Come Back Baby, High and Lonesome

Come Back Baby



Here's one for the 3/5 Grinnell majority in the group. One night after bartending at JD's I went down the stairs to the Pub--it was probably Finals or some shit because it was just me and the townies. Then, this band came on, and for whatever reason, the music just laid me out, and I spent two and half hours dancing with strange, sturdy women, swearing that this was some of the best stuff I'd ever heard. I paid five bucks for the CD, and it immediately entered the drinking at 2 AM rotation. I ended up catching them three or four more times while I was there...always a full house—it's really a perfect Midwestern blue-collar bar sound. Drunken and sloppy, bluesy but not despondent, with just enough country to keep it real. Like if one of the Walkmen actually had something go half-way right for once. Or at least didn't overthink the stuff that totally sucked. Back in the day, when every night ended with whiskey and music—it got heavy play for me...now, unfortunately, not so much.

“Come Back” is probably the class of the album—I think it was their encore at the shows. It's about some out of work dude who gets his heart-broken by a 17-year old hottie that leaves him for some guy who's got a great factory job. I still love all the rural small-town details that litter the song, and while I think it wears a little thin about halfway through, it finishes up strong. The lines, “Sometimes when she calls my name/I swear it sounds just like a curse/ But at 4:00 on a love-sick Iowa morning/I tell you people, I sure heard worse” absolutely brought the house down. It's also the sort of song that not only sounded significantly better live, but probably could have benefited from better production that highlighted the keyboards and slide a little better. If Uncle Tupelo had done it, it would be an alt-country classic.

High and Lonesome has long since broken up, but the frontman, David Zollo, keeps touring—almost exclusively in Iowa, playing three nights a week or so for most of the year, releasing an album every now and then. Which doesn't seem like a bad life. I've bought all his new records—and every few months or so I'll break one of them out. They're like musical comfort food—totally honest and authentic, but without ever being so challenging or intense that they could ruin a perfectly good buzz.