Lori McKenna continues to assert herself as one of the best songwriters in this century on 1988.
Lori McKenna over the years has become known as one of the most renowned and respected songwriters in Nashville, one who inherently has an ability to put into lyrics the emotions we have all felt. 1988 is the newest addition to her catalogue of material, another collection of songs that address the most intimate and universal parts of the human experience – from family struggles to growing old and getting through everyday life. Through her songwriting, McKenna gives out sage, motherly advice in bucketfuls. The title of the record 1988 was the year that McKenna married her husband, Gene, and the title track recalls those blissful early days of early marriage, through the twists and turns of life, but being together through it all. ‘We were too dumb to know we didn’t know anything / And too young for making those plans.’ It’s a nostalgic, loving and tender track, ‘would have all went to hell, if not for you.’
The motherly instinct comes through on ‘Happy Children’ that she wrote with her son Chris McKenna, passing wisdom down to her son with the simple prayer that ‘I hope you have happy children.’ As ever, McKenna celebrates the simple things in life money can’t be – family, love and nature, that are also celebrated on ‘The Old Woman in Me.’ It’s a beautiful track embracing the beauty of aging gracefully and the life she has chosen for herself and making no apologies for the twists and turns of life. ‘The old woman in me, she don’t wanna go back in time / Thinks her 50s might have been her prime / Says don’t give up on that man of mine.’
There’s a great deal more nostalgia on this project, grappling with her childhood than we have heard from McKenna to this point. ‘Town In Your Heart’ is a beautifully written track about wishing to go back and save someone. ‘Go on and take me with you wherever you are / I hope I live on a road in the town in your heart.’ There’s a healthy dose of nostalgia and pain as McKenna craves going back to save the protagonist from their demons. She acknowledges the everyday pain of smalltown life rather than hiding it under a glossy veneer, in a way that feels incredibly authentic, so ‘Growing Up’ is a more pensive, acoustic track looking back on growing up – the ugly sides too, rather than just through rose-tinted glasses and not just seeing the lemonade stands but the ash trays too. ‘You’ll move on just the way time does / Til something brings you right back to growing up.’ This dark side of everyday life and small town life is hammered home on ‘Wonder Drug’ – a big expansive song about opioid addiction and how sometimes it can be inescapable when its fangs get in, McKenna questions instead ‘Why couldn’t love be the wonder drug?’ There’s so much lyrically to unpack on this multi-layered track, yet McKenna distills the raw pain as the primary emotion that rises above the complicated intricacies of the lyrics, a pain that was clearly felt on ‘Killing Me.’ McKenna is joined by long-time collaborator Hillary Lindsey as they sing to their younger selves about the weight they carry. ‘Would it kill you to be happy / Cause trying to make you happy / Trying to make you happy is killing me.’ It’s maternal and sisterly in the tenderness of the care with which she treats her younger self.
The other predominant theme on the project is around the unpredictability of life, questioning how we all ended up with the lives we live, nowhere more so than on ‘The Tunnel’ which narrates the mystery of life itself and how you end up where you are. ‘I held my breath, said a prayer and kept running… I don’t know how it works or how God picks who gets to get through / It just seems like a lot of life’s been mostly the tunnel for you.’ The rollercoaster of life of course is also represented on ‘Days Are Honey’ that tells the story of the twists and turns of life where ‘some days are dirt / some days are honey.’ It’s a hopeful, intoxicating thrumming track that distills the ideas of a lot of her records into one.
1988 is a mesmerising collection of songs by Lori McKenna – produced by Dave Cobb that traverses the entirety of the human experience from the meaning of life itself, to love, growing old and parenthood. McKenna is one of the most magical songwriters this century, with a unique power to distill the human experience into a few lines. 1988 is a gift, for mothers, girls coming of age, and anyone who is lost.
