SOUNDTRACK: JOHN PAUL WHITE-“The Long Way Home,” Tiny Desk Family Hour (March 12, 2019).
These next few shows were recorded at NPR’s SXSW Showcase.
The SXSW Music Festival is pleased to announce the first-ever Tiny Desk Family Hour showcase, an evening of music by artists who have played NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert, at Central Presbyterian Church on Tuesday, March 12 from 8-11pm.
I have recently been re-listening to The Civil Wars and re-remembered how great John Paul White is. He’s playing near me in a few weeks, but I can’t go see him. I do hope he comes back.
John Paul White is a Tiny Desk veteran two times over: He’s performed once as a solo artist and once as half of the decorated and now-defunct Americana duo The Civil Wars. So he was a natural to take the stage for NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Family Hour. The room felt at once packed and cavernous, with White perfectly suited to the setting. He’s got a voice made for high ceilings.
White is up on stage with just his guitar and his voice. He plays a song that is about his love/hate relationship about the music business.
White introduced the song with a boast any artistically inclined parent will understand: “I want to do a song for you now that I’m really happy to say makes my kids cry. It’s not easy. My kids are hard. I immediately felt guilty but knew I was going to record it for the next record. But “The Long Way Home” taps into greater universal truths than that, capturing the way even our most ambitious pursuits can feel like a mere stepping stone to the comfort of the everyday.
It’s a bouncy minor key song and you know it’s going to be a gut-wrencher. The chorus: “I ain’t leaving, I’m just taking the long way home to you.”
Yikes, if all of White’s songs are as emotionally charged as this, maybe I don’t want to see him in person. But his voice sounds fantastic.
[READ: March 3, 2019] “Sweet”
This was one-page and thoroughly confusing.
It begins: “Gregory Speen learns to not doubt himself and Mike Brenlan supports him wholeheartedly.”
Then we get small sections about Speen.
Speen can tell that a woman is cruel. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 