Fred Eaglesmith

Sometimes a CD comes along that so well defines my current thinking I can’t seem to listen to anything else. Tinderbox is my latest musical obsession.

I had heard the CD described as gospel for the unbeliever. After listening over and again and again, I disagree. Fred Eaglesmith believes in something, but, in his own words:

Fancy God

That God you got is a fancy God
And he’s not the one I know
He don’t live in parking lots
Outside of monster homes
My God ain’t in the government
He don’t put on a big show
That God you got is a fancy God
And he’s not the one I know

My God lives on gravel roads
And goes down into hollers
Goes down and saves the souls
Of your very sons and daughters
Your crystal meth
And your cocaine breathe
And your tingling to your toes
That God you got is a fancy God
And he’s not the one I know

Fred has gone through major changes recently. Last year his right hand man and long time band mate, Willie P. Bennett suffered a heart attack. Then early this year, Willie died. I don’t know how much of the changes in Fred’s music can be attributed to his friend’s passing, but to be sure, Tinderbox is a departure from the sound and style I am accustomed to hearing from Fred.

Spare, primitive sounds dominate songs with the beat and rhythm you’d expect from old negro spirituals sung out in the fields, perhaps set to the pace of a hoe clawing at the ground. Gospel themes dominate, but Fred’s version of gospel is more like that Jesus offered—that of someone reared in the real world, not the words of some priest or preacher—part of the accepted establishment.

Fred sings of a dark, forbidding world, a world that is killing him, day by day. He cries for rain, for mercy, for justice, a farmer on bended knee in a worked up field, a soldier back from war, a desperate outlaw, someone’s crying from the very back row in a failing church; the world’s about to end and everyone knows. He prays, and prays and prays. Yet evil men sit in high places and prey on those below. Once again, Fred’s own words:

You Can’t Trust Them

Well out on the corner
Of third and green
They’re dealing prescription
Amphetamines
And you count your fingers
When you shake their hand
Cause they steal your wealth
As fast as they can

(Chorus)
You can’t trust em
Their souls are lost
They keep taking Jesus
Back off of the cross
Lightning won’t strike em
And the cops won’t bust em
And all I know
All I know
Is you can’t trust em

And their ivory towers
They swing and they sway
As they count up the hours
Until you can’t pay
And your worth is figured
And your presence is rated
And all of their interest
Is calculated

(Chorus)

Bells softly ring
Beneath their steeple
They’re selling souls
And they’re dealing people
And the choirs sing
The coyotes laugh
And quietly they take
Everything you have

(Chorus)

Tinderbox is an exceptional CD - the best I’ve heard from Mr. Eaglesmith and crew in a long time. And that my friends, is saying something.

Author: Don Henry Ford Jr