The Singles Jukebox

Welcome to Amnesty 2017! And what better way to begin than with some Americana?

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[6.20]

Alex Clifton: “Showboat” is a take on machismo, with the central character too proud and masculine to cry; it’s slightly more serious than the Flight of the Conchords’ “I’m Not Crying,” but not by much. In four minutes, Ritter paints a portrait of a desperate showy guy who keeps refusing to face the truth with remarkable lyrical dexterity and affection. He’s overdramatic and swaggering, bemoaning how it never rains hard enough to cover his tears while also powering through to dance on tables. The best part, though, is that while the song is fun, the narrator never becomes a caricature. We might laugh at this guy, but there’s a real heart to his story; Ritter cuts deep into that feeling of maintaining a happy façade but with the emotion spilling over. That last verse in particular is phenomenal, a tense, breathless buildup of boasts that finally ends with the tacit admission that, yes, he really is sinking. While Ritter’s characters always feel like they’ve hopped out of a novel, he inhabits their stories so fully that they become real. That’s always been the calling card of a great folk artist, and Ritter is far and away one of the greats.
[9]

Stephen Eisermann: Musically, this is a groovier “”I Am… I Said,”” but Josh actually sings throughout this track, whereas Neil spends the early part of his first verse talking on a beat. Stylistically, even, these tracks aren’t all that different, with Josh putting up a bit of a façade in the face of a failed relationship and Neil tearing his façade down on his track. These comparisons are important because I love that Neil Diamond song tremendously. Naturally, I’m pretty stoked to have come across this song.
[7]

Iain Mew: I thought the first verse’s absurdly extended riff on hiding tears in the rain was a nice joke to start things off, and looked forward to finding out where else the song would go. Ha! I hadn’t yet grasped the form of Josh Ritter’s showboating: proving he can juggle one ball blindfolded, with his hands behind his back, and in the face of a brass onslaught, before ever moving on to picking up another ball.
[6]

Brad Shoup: He’s got the lilt of Waylon aiming for the variety shows. And a conceit (rain concealing tears) that was deployed about 800 times in the 1960s, before the umbrella was invented. A lot of those songs used jollity for additional irony, but it’s still nice to hear the horns. He summons a great ragged commotion from a well-spaced mix: at one point, the organ shudders like a harp with a bandsaw on its soundboard.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Loudon Wainwright, John Hiatt, and their ilk flash in Josh Ritter’s delivery and songwriting. You know who I mean — the guys you’d see displayed next to the latest Van Morrisson at a Barnes & Noble in 1998. This gentle mockery of machismo takes its cue from Ritter’s conversational cadences, although he could use a temper instead of letting the horns get peppier. 
[6]

Jonathan Bradley: Ritter’s band reclines into an unhurried soft rock groove, their Laurel Canyon vibes belying the unfussy professionalism at work. Out front of these restrained polyrhythms and carefully tasteful guitar licks, Ritter is a workmanlike presence, his delivery too blocky and unambitious to do much more than take up space. As the arrangement crescendos with pumping organ and grunting horns, he tries to keep up, but the best his monotone manages is a more hurried delivery. If, as the lyric suggests, he’s masking his emotions, it’s an act he pulls off too well; this has all the anxiety of a Sunday afternoon pint while a beer garden bar band plays the background.
[4]

Ian Mathers: Maybe fittingly, the place I can most easily imagine relaxing into this enjoyably minor “It Never Rains in Southern California”-meets-“Little Green Apples” groove (with just a titch of John Prine in the back somewhere) is in some non-fancy bar bullshitting with friends. Not sure I’d put it on the jukebox myself, but I’d probably find myself humming along.
[6]

Anthony Easton: Ritter’s recent elaborate production seems at cross grains to a lyrical nimbleness. The entire brass band kind of works better than other recent examples, maybe because the writing is less nimble, and because it fits so seamlessly with the theme of the writing. I am still a little bored, which is sad, because I love Ritter. 
[4]

Nortey Dowuona: This feels comforting. A fuzzy, blurry mess of organs and horns swirl around the rocksteady but rigid drums, the lumpy, passive bass and the raspy, gravely tones of Ritter. Good comfort food.
[6]

Mo Kim: There’s something in the rhythms of this song, waxing and waning behind an upbeat arrangement of horns and guitars, that lends “Showboat” a quiet desperate intensity; Ritter, a skillful storyteller, stays his hand until the levees break over the bridge and he spills over the chorus. 
[8]