My Top Twenty-One of 2021: #17

17. Rodney Crowell: Triage

What can save us from the horrors of the last couple of years? And by that, I don't just mean the pandemic, but also the politicians? Rodney Crowell has the answer, and we should all hope that if we end up in triage, he's the doctor assigned. Because his answer is a very simple one, but still the only thing we need to see us through: love.

Rodney explains his definition of love in great detail on the title track, and goes even further when he says I'm All About Love, 

I love Vladimir Putin and Benedict Arnold

And I'm happy to say I even love Donald, 

I love Greta Thunberg & Jessica Biel

Same goes for the devil if I thought it was real

This is a record about finding beauty and positivity everywhere, because it's possible everywhere. as seen in this famous image...

A sunflower growing on a narrow raft in a fog bank on the Thames

Adrift above the tide slime, where nothing holy swims

Wherever did it come from? Likely bird shit, someone said

Just a random freak of nature that refuses to play dead

Oh to be that stand up straight past seven feet or more

Aye, she ain't no faux silk pansy boys, what washed up on the shore

So let us stop and marvel for as long as we can spare

Seems you have no need for heaven when your hearts already there

Elsewhere on the record, you'll find thoughtful meditations on growing old (This Body Isn't All There is to Who I Am) and the best Don't Leave Me song you'll hear this year. But there's anger here too, because for all his talk of love, Rodney is also well aware that Something Has To Change.

Beginning his career in 1972, Rodney Crowell has been making music as long as I've been on this earth. I've dipped into his catalogue briefly in the past, but this record definitely encouraged me to investigate it in more depth.