A Soundtrack to a Daydream
Kevin Morby is a white man with a guitar who writes and performs indie-rock folk music. There are probably thousands upon thousands of Kevin Morbys in the world right now. You will find at least three in each college dorm hallway.
One of them will probably also be named Kevin.
Like so many others before him, he’s been writing songs on his guitar, branding them with his name, and releasing them into the world since he was a teenager. His songwriting can be clunky, with simple melodies and a faux-Bob Dylan voice. So what makes Kevin Morby notable enough not only to listen to but to write about?
The answer is because I believe in Kevin Morby as a person as much as I do as an artist – I do not perceive him as a man who is writing music primarily as an avenue to fame or riches. Indie music today is all too often over-produced to create a ready-to-consume product. The industry is flush with guitar-wielding Caucasians hoping to be America’s next songwriting heartthrob. By contrast, Morby’s intentions always seem intimate and unintrusive. He scarcely writes songs about himself - he writes songs about other people and for other people. It’s a rare Morby song that doesn’t call out friends, family members, or lovers specifically by name. And it’s not in a hokey way either; he’s not churning out love ballads à la “Hey There Delilah.” His name drops are brief and carefully selected – nothing more than an inside joke or a reference to a shared memory between only himself and the subject. The name doesn’t define the song so much as humanize it, reminding us that he is singing for people that he cares about as much as we care about our own loved ones. If most indie-rock these days is made like a microwaveable meal, Morby’s dishes are slow-simmered in momma’s crockpot.
The problem with his new album, Sundowner, is that it tastes more like last night’s leftovers than fresh home-cooking.
This album was recorded by Morby on a 4-track tape recorder, and thus it sounds very stripped-down and uncomplicated. That is actually quite fitting - as a songwriter, Morby has always kept things simple by using tried-and-true imagery. His previous albums are adorned with songs that utilize ubiquitous symbolism: the moon, the stars, fire, water, flowers, angels, the devil, etc. If it’s a common artistic symbol, you can bet that Morby has written a song about it. You may count that as a strike against the argument that Morby isn’t just another nondescript indie-rocker. However, I’ve always viewed him as a torchbearer rather than a tax-claimed dependent of this powerful imagery that dates back centuries. Sundowner has cast some doubts on that assessment. His use of the sun as a life-giving and nurturing symbol is a dry well in the songwriting world, and so is the imagery of sundown as a weighty and melancholy time as night approaches. He does little to revitalize or provide his own spin on sundown, making the title track feel closer to college dorm Kevin than Kevin Morby.
Another strike against Morby is that not only does he overuse conventional symbols, but he also doesn’t make up for it with particularly interesting melodies or rhymes. He’s prone to re-using the same rhymes again and again throughout all his albums (he rhymes “hours” with “devour” in seemingly every album and does so again in Sundowner’s title track). For this reason, many of his tracks can sound sing-songy, and that is especially true on Sundowner. His propensity for counting numbers aloud in his songs doesn’t help this perception, and he does it again to close out this album. (“Ballad of Arlo Jones,” “1234,” and “No Halo” are other songs of his that come to mind that heavily feature counting).
He’s aiming for The Count’s job on
Sesame Street
at this point.
“Don’t Underestimate Midwest American Sun” and “A Night at the Little Los Angeles” follow this mold and drag the album down with languid paces and uninventive wordplay.
In Sundowner, Morby more resembles a writer of nursery rhymes than modern indie-folk songs. But if children can find comfort in nursery rhymes, why can’t adults find the same solace in Morby’s lyrics? He seems to be aware of his Seuss-ian effect; In “Brother, Sister,” he literally sings a snippet of “Wheels on the Bus.” Morby understands that his role as an artist is not to blow you away with flair or glamour, but instead to deliver kinship and comfort in his music. Or, as he beautifully articulates on “Provisions,” he’s just here to “cast your vision on a melody for a while.”
In these times of isolation, you can’t understate the value of a soundtrack to a daydream, and Morby provides just that.
The truest and most special quality that Kevin Morby brings is that when you listen to one of his albums, it’s like listening to a friend, and luckily this isn’t lost in Sundowner. Morby is a man that thinks of strangers as friends first and simply asks that you treat him and his songs with the same benevolence. A Morby album will always come with questions surrounding the complexity of his songwriting and his penchant for repetition over innovation. But his undeniable tenderness and earnest intentions are worth far more than a snappy end rhyme. Sundowner is certainly not his strongest effort, but it was never as ambitious as his previous releases like Oh My God or Singing Saw. It’s a fine addition to Morby’s discography, and songs like “Wander” and “Valley” carry a surprising amount of intensity for such a bare-bones production. What it doesn’t do is provide any more evidence to suggest that Morby is a folk-rocker worth your attention, nor does it display any progression in his songwriting ability.
Yet I still believe in Kevin Morby, and he has produced enough excellence in the past to garner more chances to prove himself - and don’t friends always deserve another chance? There are several things to overcome to truly become appreciative of what he brings to the table. His albums, in particular his singing voice and enunciation, often take several listens to fully set in, but then become permanently stuck on you in the best possible way. He is distinct in his homogeneous genre, and despite what a surface level estimation might tell you, Morby has the potential to astound you so long as you can learn to live with his shortcomings. Perhaps he’s not so different from your college roommate after all.
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