Beatles tunes like ‘Can I Hold Your Hand’, ‘Love Me Do’ and ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ tell simple truths with a admirable brevity. There’s no need to make things complicated is the subtext. On the one hand this is banality with a beat but the innocence and directness means these songs always sound fresh.
We live in more cynical times but the need for recounting homely wisdom with clarity and optimism still has its place. Tom Meltzer has been writing and performing for over 40 years and knows this well.
Up until now he has played guitar and sung in two Americana bands, ‘The Special Guests’and New York City-based ‘5 Chinese Brothers’.
‘Nice Things’ is his first solo album. The record consists of sixteen songs with only four exceeding three minutes. It was recorded at home in North Carolina and he wrote, sang, and played everything although there is one cover song: Paul Foligno’s I'm a Stranger Here.
Following the Fab Four’s lead, there is nothing deep or complex about the lyrical content. The title track asserts that ”Only love can make us whole” although other songs do warn that it is also a mystery, a myth and a trial.
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In b>Be Kind Meltzer notes that “everybody wins when you try to be more kind” while on Every Day I Fall In Love With You All Over Again he observes that ”sadness can endure but good things also last.”
He admits to being confused by debates about gender in Moses Never Reached the Promised Land but the other songs all recognise that there is little sense in pampering life’s complexities and ”nothing to be gained from wallowing in woe (Let 'em Go).
In short, this is a nice record about nice things.
Tom Meltzer’s website
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