If someone asked you to listen to a song called "Tell Somebody (Repeal the Patriot Act NOW)," you'd probably cringe at the possibility--indeed, the likelihood--of a preachy message being delivered over the relentless strumming of an acoustic guitar and the incessant banging of a tambourine. Has the Kingston Trio been revived? Maybe it's an outtake from "A Mighty Wind," Christopher Guest's film parody about a reunion of time-warped '60s folkies. You read the lyrics for a clue:
Advertisement
Woody Guthrie. Bob Dylan. Rickie Lee Jones?
The Longtime Symbol of Boho L.A. Has a Vibrant New Album That Reveals an Unlikely Activist Persona. But Politics and Pop Music Don't Always Mix--Ask Sinead O'Connor or the Dixie Chicks.
Advertisement
Now they want us to just get in line
behind a president,
when you know they spent millions of dollars
condemning and accusing
the last one from the other side.
Tell somebody, tell somebody,
tell somebody
what's happening in the USA.
I want to know how far you will go
to protect our right of free speech?
Because it only took a moment
before it faded out of reach.
So you brace yourself to withstand the song and . . . hey, what's this? A thumping bass line, a funky guitar riff--and then a familiar voice chimes in. Could it be? No way . . . yes! It's that unmistakable drawl, hailing from the far side of coolsville--Rickie Lee Jones!? Carefree jazzbo, green-eyed soulstress, incurable romantic, bard of the bittersweet lullaby, the terminal hipster whose rendering of "I Won't Grow Up" sounded as if she meant it--Rickie Lee Jones has become a protest singer.
Her new album, "The Evening of My Best Day," comes out Tuesday, and many critics likely will describe it as "vintage Rickie Lee." Her signature sound is all there--the finger-snappin' rhythms, the aching ballads, the poetic lyrics. It's clearly her strongest new work in a decade. But in making this record, Jones had an awakening. It was no longer enough just to create, or to entertain, or, as she puts it, to "heal."
Jones' evolution is revealed on the album's first cut--a brooding jazz groove. You think she's about to channel Betty Carter with a throaty lament about a lost love. But the song is titled "Ugly Man," and it's about the President of the United States of America:
He's an ugly man
he always was an ugly man.
He grew up to be just like his father
an ugly man.
And he'll tell you lies.
He'll look at you and tell you lies.
He grew up to be just like his father
ugly inside.
