songs for broken hearts, no. 20

The cold, hard, driving rains returned last night with a vengence, making the freeways extremely treacherous as my good buddy and I made our monthly trip out to Woodland Hills to hear Bob Cowsill play 60s hits on his guitar at the Pickwick Pub on Ventura Blvd. When I returned home at 2am, I discovered that I had somehow lost my house key, and I had to break a window to get into my house and out of the near-freezing rain. Oh well. It's only money. The rain has subsided for a bit today, but it's supposed to return tonight, and they say it may get cold enough to actually start snowing in the higher elevations... What does any of this have to do with broken hearts and the late David Ackles' amazing 1972 album, American Gothic? Not much, except that it is what I would consider a good rainy day album, somber as hell without being a downer just for the sake of being a downer. There's a lovely warmth that comes through the tracks. It's one of those albums that grows and grows on you if you're willing to put in the time it takes to acquire the taste. My favorite albums are often ones that take some time to penetrate. American Gothic was very much under-the-radar when it first appeared. Ackles came out of a folk tradition, sort of fitting in with the confessional singer-songwriter thing, except that his songs aren't immediately accessible enough for him to have achieved the kind of mass appeal of, say, James Taylor, or Jackson Browne, or Jim Croce. Part of the 'problem' for Ackles was that he mixed folk with elements of Tin Pan Alley, Vaudeville, and show tunesyness, none of which are typically the sort of thing sets the charts on fire. But the obscurity of American Gothic is part of its appeal. It feels like it might loosely be some sort of concept album about America in the shadow of the post-60s Viet Nam era. I may be reading too much into it. In any case, the overall tone is dark and harrowing, yet also very humane. The fascinating thing for me is how relevant it sounds to the troubled times we're all living through now. Today's selection is a haunting love song that will seep into your blood and stay there, if you let it...