Steve Earle
Washington Square Serenade
MUSIC REVIEWED BY BOB JONES

Washington Square Serenade - New West Records

Steve Earle has moved to New York City, and this record is an audio change of address card. It's been about three years since Earle has released a new record, which is odd, because Steve Earle always has something to say. What he seems to say in Washington Square Serenade is that he loves his new home base. "Tennessee Blues" is not about being in Tennessee - he sings, "Sunset in my mirror/pedal on my floor/bound for New York City/and I won't be back no more/…you won't see me around/goodbye Guitartown." It is classic Steve Earle, an artist who has written many a song about changing addresses in order to reinvent himself or leave his troubles behind. "City of Immigrants" talks about the diversity of NYC and the fact that it is a city full of other Democrats. The left-leaning Earle has never lived in a place where the majority thinks as he does. (At one time, past legal problems may have prevented him from leaving his home state, but I can't say for sure.) One stand-out tune, "Oxycotin Blues" (arrangement straight from Modest Mouse's "Satin in a Coffin"), is about a poor boy in a coal-mining town, doing whatever it takes to score this drug of choice: steal from family, "pawn grandma's locket," anything. Now clean for well over a decade, Earle writes about what he knows and does it with a John Wayne-style swagger, only this time he is walking up Bleeker Street instead of Lower Broad. ¦