AMY SPEACE – The American Dream (Goldrush Records)

The American DreamAmy Speace has recently finished a UK tour, has released a new album, The American Dream, and has sent a copy of the album to Folking Towers for review. I listened to one track and said, “That sounds a notch above” – and having now had the whole album for a few days, it certainly is. But then, Speace has had one of her songs recorded by Judy Collins and she’s been mentored by Collins, Tom Paxton and Janis Ian. She’s also paid her dues the old-fashioned way with twenty years of touring across the USA and Europe.

Her own description is, “The record is called “The American Dream” and was written during my separation and divorce. It deals with the other side of the dream, so-called. And is influenced by my motherhood.”  The album opens with the glorious country-pop title track, the lyric based around her memories of 1976, the American Dream seen from a seven-year old’s perspective with the additional knowledge of the older songwriter.

Speace has written, or co-written, eleven of the twelve tracks – some of them, on closer listening, a notch higher still than my initial reaction of the album being ‘a notch above’.

The second track is a slightly older girl’s memory of the ‘Homecoming Queen’ and gives me chance to highlight Speace’s ability to create memorable images. The imagery in the song of:

“The queen on the hood of a Mustang waves at us
While the cheerleaders flip and the cowbells shake
And the boys line up like bulls at the gate”

which then moves on to equally visual imagery of the homecoming queen’s later life is power songwriting.

There isn’t space to depict the whole album in detail, so a quick flavour of the rest:

‘New York City’ begins with sparse piano and builds a fuller sound to tell the story of Speace’s life in her 20’s and 30’s in the East Village in New York City. To go with the story, there’s a refrain that I feel I’ve known since I first heard classic American Songbook music. The song finishes with a comparison between the girl then who was sitting in a café writing verses and the older woman’s reflection on life:

“But now I know what age does to memory
It softens the edges and everything’s blurred
It fills in the gaps with regret and romance
Am I really that many years from that girl?”

‘Glad I’m Gone’ and ‘Already Gone’ capture the complexities that any divorcee will know. If the album predominantly has an americana feel, ‘Already Gone’ just about touches into jazz-piano-cum-Songbook, ‘Something Bout a Town’ has a Nick Cave vibe, and ‘This February Day’ just about slips into the edge of folk. It makes for a varied album which holds the attention.

How to describe ‘First United Methodist Day Care Christmas Show’? It shouldn’t work, it should be impossible for the story to work in song without being mawkish … and, yet, this track works, and how. It’s perfectly balanced between lyric and arrangement on a Christmas story including “spit combed hair”, “three wise men and plastic Jesus in fake snow”, “Joseph cried for Mom, snot running everywhere” and so on. For anyone who has, or has ever had, children between the ages of about four and seven, it’s a perfection of songwriting and arrangement that you will simultaneously smile at and adore. … but then, life is complex. Following the Christmas Show track with the mature, soul-baring, reflective, ‘I Break Things’ enhances both songs.

The album finishes with ‘Margot’s Wall’ written following a visit to Anne Frank’s house, and ‘Love Is Gonna Come Again’. The latter is the only cover and, with its reminder that something will “bring the kind of peace to ease your grieving [and] love is gonna come again”, is an enjoyably positive way to finish this rather splendid album.

Mike Wistow

 Artist’s website: https://www.amyspeace.com

‘The American Dream’ – official video:

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