Lakes of Fire in My Dreams

I suspect the release of a Jason Isbell album is a big event for a certain type of music person. The people still piqued by the fact Darius Rucker gets credit in pop country crowds for a Bob Dylan song. The people deeply saddened by the passing of a lovable Teddy Bear named John Prine. There are clear musical losses in pandemic world for most people. Concert tours are a loss for a large percentage of the population. But there’s more for these music people. They don’t get to go to small music clubs on Tuesday nights, crush Hamms, and hit a dive bar for a frozen pizza after.

There is one clear gain for fortunate people, should they choose to see it. One can slow down and listen to things. Pay attention. Really listen.

I’m a fortunate person. So in pandemic times the opportunity to take on music in much much less of a hurry means I can make a date with Isbell’s Reunions for the sunny afternoon of the Friday it’s released. I can make it available offline, airplane mode my phone, walk to the lake, and jump in a kayak with a thermos of black gold and a full dugout. I can press play at track one with no plans for taking my phone out of my pocket until it all ends. That is a joy.

This being a truly apocalyptic year, the afternoon with Reunions was not an only tranquil event for me. There were the fairly typical mental wanderings into questions like: How many people have died today? Has there been any gun deaths yet at the Michigan capital? How many more crackers have I eaten in the last two months than the previous two years total? Ya know, the little stuff.

There were colors. Waves. Wind. Trees. Birds. Turtles. A hawk flew right past me. My foggy membrane and Jason Isbell. I settled into the music and took on that delusion that we all take on when it comes to our heroes: they’re just like us. I imagined Isbell could be a buddy of mine because of the way he talks about coming from a rural area. The way he ponders what it’s like to deal with the consequences of heavily disagreeing with the contemporary politics of those areas while at the same time cherishing what those places gave us.

I also relate to the part of his story that has to do with bloodshot eyes in the bathroom mirror at 8 am. Knowing full well that that is low hanging fruit. What percent of persons can NOT relate to existential despair in the morning after turning the brain to scramble eggs in a dive bar (and a dive bar bathroom)? Most non-sociopaths that live into adulthood build up some qualms with past versions of themselves. Parts of me find very relatable Isbell lyrics like “Seagram’s in a coffee cup” and “if you don’t sit facing the window you could be in any town.”

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Our nationwide obsession with new things perhaps has made us also obsessed with what people leave behind. We are savages for narratives about loss and gain. It’s impossible to find an article about Isbell that doesn’t cover sobriety and recovery. It’s unfortunately become an overindulged detail of his story. Which is not to say that it’s unimportant.

But the person with the inclination to push limits went nowhere when the habit of chemical indulgence left. That person is still addicted to something. I’d contend there’s much more to be learned in the addiction that Isbell clearly did not give up: the desire to explain what it feels like to gaze out at existence. To try to understand where one is in it. To make us see in scene what he sees in an instant. He has the ability to transport the listener immediately to a time, a space, and a feeling. This is incredibly difficult to do, and he does it.

I don’t believe too much in reading about an album before I listen to it, so I can’t be all that interested in writing a track by track review for someone else. But there are a few things that really stick. “Overseas” is brilliant storytelling. “River” is scripture if the Bible was written for existentialist pagan earth worshippers. “St Peter’s Autograph” tugs at the strings and in it Isbell becomes a working heart’s devotion. He demonstrates what it really means to care for someone.

There are still good things in life. All things considered. Listen to this album and you’ll get what I mean. In a time when we all are wondering which parts of our past we’ll be available to reunite with in the new world we see coming, we can be thankful for the work and insights of this bard in blue jeans. For a Friday afternoon with a good album to help us settle a bit when the world is burning up.

Isbell has a gnarly-knuckled handle on the mind’s eye. With that eye and this album he demonstrates an achievement of the soul’s ability to communicate with the outside world. And even the ghosts got out.