Love in the Time of War Is not Fair

It’s not even May yet but the best Mother’s Day present was just released today. And if you are a mother, I hate to spoil what you will be getting, but there is a good chance if you don’t get the standard bouquet or chocolates in four months, you will be unwrapping Not Too Late, the latest album from Norah Jones, to complete your set of the singer’s albums. The previous two of which sold an astounding thirty million copies and garnered her eight Grammy Awards solely on the strength of just one hit. Of course back in 2002 the slow jazz feel of Don’t Know Why was a breath of fresh air back hip-pop and pseudo-punk ruled the radio. Well maybe not that much has changed in the five years since.

Norah rarely deviates from her trademark, insomnia curing sound for most of the album. But there are some signs that she is breaking out of the mold and going back even deeper into Americana. My Dear Country does a much better job at making a speakeasy ditty than anything from the Outkast movie set in the same timeframe. Thanks to some cellos and bowed bass Sinkin’ Soon also has an old-time feel to it while at the same time sounding like it wouldn’t have been out of place on the latest Fiona Apple. Even though it still sounds more like her pervious work, The Sun Doesn’t Like You drives along like a summer afternoon. Well maybe drives Miss Daisy along like a summer afternoon.

The biggest change on the album though is that she has a writing credit on all thirteen tracks; for those keeping track that is six more than on her previous two albums combined. And from the lyrics it seems she’s not that happy with titles like The Sun Doesn’t like You, Not My Friend, and Broken. She’s not too happy about our government either as seen in the biting My Dear Country with lines like, “’Cause we believed in our candidate, but even more it’s the one we hate.” Is she talking about Bush? Kerry? Gore? Does it really matter because we always seem to lose either way? The song opens up with the irony that our elections are held not that far away from Halloween.

The war also gets mentioned as Jones plays the role of a consoler for a wife who has lost her husband in the opening track Wish I Could. With some of the political leaning in other songs it easy to assume that Sinkin’ Soon could be a metaphor about the botched post-Katrina cleanup effort. And again, choose your favorite scapegoat to play the captain in the line, “With a captain who's too proud to say that he dropped the oar.” Do we really need Norah Jones on a soapbox? Not really. But no one’s really paying attention to the lyrics anyways, so just put the album on and relax. Well until you pass the album onto your mother in May.

Song to Download - The Sun Doesn’t Like You

Not Too Late gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.