Kathleen Edwards

"the cheapest key" was the one that jumped out at me first time

Yeah, me too, and it was also the first one that reminded me of Johnston.

video for "in state", which sucks because it's totally generic and the lyrics deserve something a little more specific.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MHjOPsYhNrM

It's a good song.

There's just something about those Canadians who make country-influenced music.

I actually can't STAND "The Cheapest Key." I like the rest of the album.

If they're comparable at all, I think I like the Laura Marling album more (Alas I Cannot Swim), but this Asking for Flowers album is pretty damn good. It's weird though, cause her name seems really familiar, but I can't figure out where I heard Kathleen Edwards before.

Oh. Nevermind. An Amazon search reminded me. I really liked Failer in 2003.

On the title track, she kinda sounds like Laura Cantrell on Humming by the Flowered Vine.

I usually try to avoid saying things like this, but she seems just like a female Freedy Johnston!

NY'ers get to choose between them tomorrow nite. But perhaps she's more like a female version of tourmate Dan Wilson?

I hear an echo of Lucinda Williams, but filtered through raw-boned Canadian prairie winters instead of Louisiana bayous. But she also has a "sound", something unique to her, which sometimes makes her songs sound dangerously similar and indistinct. Failer is still my favourite -- "6 O'clock News", "In State", "Hockey Skates," "Mercury", and "National Steel" all being standouts. What I love about her slurry, supple voice is an endearing frailty at the heart of some fairly transparent tough chick fronting.

(I've only heard clips from her new one.)

"In State" is one of those rare songs that manages to successfully fit a whole lot of plot, character, and atmosphere into a single song. It's like a Sopranos episode.

Melissa McClelland (who may be in her touring band -- she's at least playing with Luke Doucet, the opener) is really good in her own right. I'm susprised her '06 CD Thumbelina's One Night Stand never has been released in the U.S. -- it's basically in the Sarah Harmer template, but with much more ambition, scale, and tunefulness.

It's currently in between Kathleen, Laura Marling, and Vampire Weekend for most played tracks this year on my iTunes. According to the counter, I like Buffalo, Oil Man's War, The Cheapest Key the most. (Oddly, tho I remember all the lyrics once the song starts playing - I can't remember which title goes to which song.)

My favorite is still "I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory," though maybe I favorite because I can identify with the subject matter. It's one of my favorite songs about being in a touring band -- it's good (and rare) when songs about being a musician avoid self-hagiography.

I meant "though it may be my favorite because...", obv

I love love love Mercury and Westby.

Which is the one with the song about the incest-murder-thing?

Or rather, which song is the one about the...

Mercury is the Virgin Suicides condensed into three minutes, Westby is a brutally theatrical character study about a little bit on the side.

"Alicia Ross," it's a true story as well. xposts

"The Cheapest Key" is the alphabet song, of sorts. It's also her most energetic. I saw the video for it on one of the cable country music channels recently. It fit where the majority of her material does not. It sold the album for me, plus Back to Me. Not bad.

Right. So I love Alicia Ross. Great song. Very haunting, and reminds me of that Buffy Saint-Marie song about similar themes.

Her voice still bugs me.

"The Cheapest Key" is an alphabetish song, but I think its important to note that she only uses letters that correspond to musical keys.

Yes, teacher.

!

I love the LP BACK TO ME! almost all of it is terrific!

another song that even more amazingly crams a story in: 'Pink Emerson Radio'

I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory

my favourite as well.

Mine too, for the hockey stuff mainly (among other stuff), though I keep meaning to go back and relisten to the Neil Youngy one that everybody says they like so much. For some reason, it's never jumped out at me. Album is pretty good though -- probably the best of her three, though I don't own the first two anymore and therefore can't check. (I did like one hockey song she did earlier, however.)

Man, I don't catch hockey refs! What are they?

You're The Great One,
I'm Marty McSorley.

Ah, I figured, cause I had no idea who those were!

Failer is still my favourite -- "6 O'clock News", "In State", "Hockey Skates," "Mercury", and "National Steel" all being standouts

Yeah, that was the other hockey one. And I liked "6 O'Clock News" at the time. Maybe should've kept it.

More about her on the Can We Talk About West Coast Country Rock etc thread and Rolling Country

Getting really into 'Asking for Flowers'...

Mercury is perfect, a sad bruised thing.

Listened to this in my car for a month, and "Sure As Shit" emerged as my favorite. The one that says "Believe me, all the days you're unsure/Believe in me, I don't want to anymore" is beautiful and I can't really listen to it without tearing up but it's slightly, ever so slightly...corny?

The flirting with corniness is what makes her really good, I think. Flirting in general, even. You get that unexpected tear in the corner of your eye and you fight it, feeling naively self-conscious, but then you just admit that it's very good songwriting and even better execution and you're hooked. I'm starting to think Asking for Flowers might just be her best now.

Asking for Flowers I definitely agree is her best. My mother compares her to Neil Young, and I think she's half-right (she's talking about his Harvest-era material). Just some drop-dead gorgeous stuff that also - at least for me - works on a few levels. It just wrecks me emotionally, or sometimes it's just pretty to listen to, and sometimes I dig it like I dig Dylan, as someone who I can appreciate their cleverness and their wit and their playfulness (with Edwards, way more playfulness than the first two).

Yeah, she reminds me of Neil a lot, too.

Hadn't thought of it, but yeah, I can see that. In the surprising emotional connection sense. Even if you're only half listening, it can just sneak up on you, which I find Neil can do as well. Maybe a crafty Canadian stealth thing?

i didn't like asking for flowers at first, but have come around to it ("oh canada" is a standout). whereas back to me grabbed me immediately, especially "copied keys." clearly she has a thing for writing about keys.

Yeah, she reminds me of Neil a lot, too.

Speaking of which...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXghGA9imzg

I can't really listen to it without tearing up

"Sure As Shit" does this for me, bad scansion, goofy denim king and all

She is brilliant. I discovered her around the same time I discovered Lucinda Williams, who I think has lost the plot with her last couple of albums. Unlike Williams, Kathleen just keeps on making superbly catchy songs with a gorgeous eye for lyrical detail and wonderfully subtle arrangements. Every single track on Asking for Flowers is at the very top of my iPod most played list.

I would, too.

My friend told me today that he sat next to Lucinda Williams at a show not too long ago. he asked her what she thought about Kathleen Edwards ripping her off, lol

Kathleen Edwards > Lucinda Williams imo

Kathleen Edwards > Lucinda Williams imo

^^^^^ on this

He said LW didn't think she was ripping her off, but she would, er, reverse the above equation definitely. He also said LW was cool as hell and bought everyone drinks and stuff, so much respect towards her.

I would say KE > LW now as well (see my earlier post). Kathleen lacks Lucinda's grit and sweat but that is no bad thing. I can't stop listening to "Scared At Night", I hang on every word of it and it makes me think about how I will feel when my father dies.

i met KE after a show where she was the support like 5-6 yrs ago and she was really gracious chilling with the crowd and signing stuff and shooting the breeze in general iirc

Yeah the fact Isbell is involved in the record has me more confused about the song because I agree, I don’t think he’d be involved if this was her overall attitude. But if she’s going for irony or satire, I think she’s failing—or else I’m badly misreading the song (which honestly I’d like to be the case).

I can imagine running a coffee shop daily in 2019-2021 would bring up some of these feelings.

And reportedly it did! But many of the subjects in the song - hat, (police) uniform, truck, flyover country, even the sneering "cry me a river" - code not small business owner but specifically contemporary right-wing conservative. Of course opening a can and keeping an outdoor cat do not, but they still follow the "quit your whining" theme, which right now *also* codes conservative. I think it's just a bad sloppy song, and not simply because she rhymes "cat" with "hat." Does kind of sound like "Cortez the Killer" at times, though.

It would seem like her story about the truck means it's explicitly about making the distinction between the symbol and the actual person like pgwp is doing above. I don't think it's so much a full-throated endorsement of the symbol so much as a "don't judge a book by its cover" message. which is, at worst, just kinda trite, but not actively harmful.

The 'bean dad' can-opener guy is John Roderick of the Long Winters, he co-wrote a couple songs with her on Voyageur. Haven't listened to this song or album yet

I think it's just a bad sloppy song, and not simply because she rhymes "cat" with "hat." Does kind of sound like "Cortez the Killer" at times, though.

Yeah, it feels in the same song world as Neil Young and also Essence-era Lucinda as far as crude (in the simple sense) song structure and rhymes and self-expression from the gut. I hadn't listened to this song (or the new album) until this morning, but through some good headphones it really does sound amazing.

"Don't judge a book by its cover" is a perfectly valid (cliche) theme, but it gets pretty dicey when you're defending a MAGA hat. Trucks are pretty neutral, what else are you supposed to think of someone that is literally foregrounding (foreheading?) their views? I'm leaning further toward "bad song."

There's a song from the most recent The The album that briefly gave me pause for similar reasons, "Linoleum Smooth To The Stockinged Foot," but at least Matt Johnson supposedly wrote that while laid up in the hospital on morphine.

Good discussion this

whoa ... i thought that line was about macho culture / masculinity, i.e. dad is teaching his son to fight / stick up for himself / "open a can of whoop-ass" ... never occurred to me that it was about Roderick.

i think the other lines are cringey, but - while i agree we don't need a song about it four years later - i think you can put that one back on the shelf. she's buddies with Roderick and that line seems very much rooted in her feelings about a thing that impacted her friend as opposed to some political statement (and it happens to work as a commentary on pile-on culture).

and to be fair to her, i think, people definitely - inexplicably - did get worked up over that. a lot of people. yes it was a long time ago, but she's not inaccurate.

Again, there are things people get worked up over that are relatively neutral or innocuous (non-Cyber trucks, can openers, cats), and things that people justifiably get worked up over (police, MAGA hats). To conflate them all is sloppy at best, problematic at worst.

why the certainty that she's referring to MAGA hats and police? I mean, maybe, but not sure that's the only read

Maybe fair in the abstract, but what other hat or uniform get people "worked up"?

Initially I thought she meant any working person that has to suit up for work and just do a job, from janitors to nurses, but I changed my mind, because by and large those uniforms do not get people "worked up" (except for Sexy Halloween season).

sports teams for one

like baseball

I admire your generosity.

I was just talking to someone about this, I wonder if anyone has ever gotten into a fight over a baseball team hat? Maybe if you walked into an opposing team bar after your team kicked their ass, and everyone was already drunk, and you started talking shit? You'd have to make an effort!

i find the song really weird, especially given the microcontext of her café — Quitters was located outside Ottawa, which, as a city, is still suffering PTSD from the so-called "convoy protest," in which Trumpish truckers occupied the downtown of the city for many weeks. given that Ottawa link, it seems particularly tin-eared or strange to write an apologia for (essentially) Trumpish assholes...

that all said, i agree that it's probably just naive more than anything - a song by the kind of person who thinks the "woke left" is as much of a problem as the conservative right.

I mean, there are definitely stories of opposing fans getting in fights at games. A few years back some Dodgers fans put a Giants fan in the hospital. So yeah MAYBE she's just talking about sports fans... but I don't buy that reading.

I agree with Josh's reading - that she is conflating some things that are truly not worth getting worked up about vs things that are symbols of power in an era where those in power are espousing truly odious views and carrying out actions that are actively harmful to individuals, families, communities. People do get worked up about that stuff!

The thing about Roderick... he got to be the Twitter Main Character and I'm sure that is absolutely no fun. I honestly don't really remember the details to know if it was blown way out of proportion or not. And if they are friends then of course she is sympathetic. I do find it funny that by bringing it up in a song four years later, one could argue that she is the one getting worked up.

People totally get into fights at games, but those events are literally about getting worked up over the opposite team. I'm talking about the real world, not a formal place of imposed conflict, lol. It's funny, because I was just having this conversation a couple of weeks ago, about what it would take to actually get beat up for wearing the wrong baseball team cap. It would take effort!

It's definitely too generous to read the hat line as anything but the MAGA hats, imo.

I thought the "uniform" line was about military. But then again, I generally don't care about lyrics that much. Police probably makes more sense.

I mean, I think besides the hat line, the rest of it is just sort of *barely* abstract enough that it's fine. The unsympathetic reading (which I don't disagree with) isn't a great look.

You would think that if anyone might try to nudge her in the right direction on this, it'd be Isbell. It'd be interesting to hear his honest thoughts about it and/or any discussion they had.

Maybe "a place I love / you've only seen from above" is her working cafe and she's talking to someone on their high horse rather than the flyover state thing.

obviously, i might be straining to find a way to make this better for her. god i love her first three albums.

Read the lyric and listened to the song. I don't think this song occupies any shadier a position on the moral spectrum than, say, Alex G's "Runner", in both songs the actual thesis seems to be an expressed reticence to shun individuals out of communities for being problematic or having different beliefs or whatever. Alex sings "I have done a couple bad things" and Kathleen's focus is more about the fact that somebody attempted to call her out for owning a truck. Difference of course is that Alex's song is far superior in its blithe obliqueness and wittiness. "Need A Ride" is hectoring and leaden, but I don't think the song's narrator is aligning herself with MAGA hats and police uniforms so much as hoping to reserve a place for cops and Trump supporters at her table.

I mean, the bridge about the hippies pretty much makes it clear that this song is criticising leftist infighting and cancellation more than any personal alignment with cops and MAGAs

It's funny, I feel like my family and social purview has fewer cops and MAGAs than it does Zios and anti-vaxxers, but if "Need A Ride" were to use those political views as their example-objects (instead of "hats" and "uniforms") the song would likely be even more strangely enraging haha

welp

Have been a subscriber of @TheFP and enjoyed so many interviews by @bariweiss over the years. Congratulations to you and your team! https://t.co/Bfzt4xNbvQ

— Kathleen Edwards (@kittythefool) October 6, 2025

oy

can I get my posts deleted above (jk). bummer

The responses to the tweet kind of reenforce that "Need A Ride" bridge.

Gah! Haven't listened to the new album yet and...am unlikely to now.

Failer still rocks, though.

yeah, i'll just adore her pre-hiatus catalog forever and call it good.

Asking for Flowers is my favorite top to bottom, but Failer's got "Six O'Clock News" and "Hockey Skates"

Ugh, all my fears confirmed. What a bummer.

Bummer, but won't stop me from listening to her music or buying her records.

Fair. I wasn't implying anyone should not listen to her; I'm just taking this revelation as an excuse not to prioritize listening to a record I was already dragging my feet on anyhow.

HI DERE! I just came across another singer-songwriter with a similar vibe. I've enjoyed what I've heard so far, but not sure yet if the writing is strong enough to recommend to others.

I would happily take that recommendation

Feel like the songs are just a little too generic-sounding so not gonna say more.

Great! Good revive.

Okay, this is the artist, not sure if I can listen again in the cold light of day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3hshgjNgew