Give You A Clue

Cass McCombs “Absentee”

The lyrics of “Absentee” mention gathering firewood, a dead river, and a country road, but he could be singing about anything at all and the song would still sound very, very rural to me. I imagine a cabin in the woods, somewhere in Upstate New York or New England. I’m not even sure why that is – it’s the pace, it’s in the piano, it’s in the soft understated saxophone that fills the air like the scent of burning wood on a crisp autumn breeze. McCombs’ vocal performance here falls in a strange valley between sensitive vulnerability and a stoic aloofness. It’s like he’s attempting to be warm in spite of a tendency to be quite cold.

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