2019 in Music: Nat's Most Anticipated Albums of 2019

2019 in Music: Nat's Most Anticipated Albums of 2019 


Anne McCue- Untitled 7th solo album- TBD 2019

Kaitlyn Ni Donovan- Untitled 2nd solo album- TBD 2019/2020

 Nicky Mehta (from "The Wailin' Jennys")-  2nd solo album- TBD Fall 2019 (tentative)

Heather Woods Broderick- Invitation- April 19th 2019

A Girl Called Eddy- Been Around- TBD 2019

Sophie B. Hawkins-  Untitled 6th solo album- TBD 2019

Heather Nova- Pearl- TBD Spring 2019

Rachel Garlin- Untitled 6th solo album- TBD 2019

Versus- Ex Nihilo EP- May 3rd 2019

Versus- 6th full-length studio album- TBD Summer 2019

Isobel Campbell (ex-Belle and Sebastian)- TBD 2019

Cass McCombs- Tip of the Sphere- February 8th 2019

Amy Annelle- High Country- TBD 2019/2020

Jennifer Terran- Untitled 6th solo album- TBD 2019/2020

Gary Olson (from "The Ladybug Transistor") - Untitled debut solo album- TBD Summer 2019

Katell Keineg- Untitled 5th solo album- TBD 2019/2020

Dar Williams-Untitled 11th solo album- TBD 2019

Amy Blaschke- Lightning Heart- TBD 2019

Fond Farewells (includes Megan Reilly)- Untitled debut studio album- TBD 2019

Noe Venable- Untitled 6th solo album- TBD 2019/2020

Jenny Lewis- On the Line-March 22nd 2019

Tracy Shedd- Untitled 6th solo album- TBD 2019

Juliana Hatfield- Weird- January 18th 2019

Guster- Look Alive- January 18th 2019

Dido- Still On My Mind- March 8th 2019

Mates of State- Untitled 7th studio album- TBD 2019/2020

The Owls- Untitled 2nd studio album- TBD 2019

Hannah Marcus- Untitled 6th solo album- TBD 2019/2020

Nina Nastasia- Untitled 7th solo album- TBD

Dixie Chicks- Untitled 8th studio album- TBD 2019

The music of Corrina Repp

Corrina’s voice startles you, shakes you to your core, like inadvertently stumbling upon a trajectory-altering revelation about yourself that comes with jarring consequences. Her lyrics refuse to cut corners with healing’s heavy lifting. They confront devastating emotional landscape head-on, with a reluctant but consoling acceptance, with an openness that doesn’t taper off at the seams. Repp’s music redefines intimacy’s big ask: It cancels that monthly subscription to sugarcoating and exaggeration, and bypasses small talk and segues. Corrina makes a home in emotion’s vulnerability, she sits unflinchingly in reality’s oft-uncomfortable lap. Her songs mosey around in raw feeling and genuine truth. She encircles the way we interact, communicate, connect with each other, but perhaps even more importantly, she seeks to clarify and articulate the gulf that lies between hope and attainability, without throwing in the towel on either. Repp’s work grasps the way an authentic belly laugh can seal a friendship’s ascension to a love story for the ages. Corrina's songs narrate the sequence of how the slightest fake smile can rupture a relationship’s hard-fought wiring, leaving a connection on the brink of oblivion. Corrina traces the heartbreaking backslide from utter alignment to a void of trust. She takes us through the gradual unwind of seemingly unbreakable eye contact falling into permanent detachment and dissolution. Corrina Repp takes us to an elevated plane, where throwing caution to the wind becomes fashionable, where chance taking becomes the rule of thumb. Repp’s songs are an unveiling of fear taking off its musty blindfold, revealing fear as nothing more than a convenient excuse for reticent living, of holding back from potential’s holler. Repp’s songs patrol and protect the helm of our humanity, discerning the swerve and sway of our converging and diverging life dance moves through our proactive, susceptible, and reactive stances.

Corrina Repp's new album "How A Fantasy Will Kill Us All" is out now.

Beth Nielsen Chapman- Hearts of Glass

Beth Nielsen Chapman- Hearts of Glass

a review by Nat Bourgon

February 21st, 2018

Link: Official Lyric Video for "Come to Mine"
Link: Official Lyric Video for "Epitaph for Love"
Link: Official Lyric Video for "You're Still My Valentine"

Twenty years ago, in the thick of 1998’s refreshing den of candor, Beth Nielsen Chapman was entrusted as the usher of our emotions, elegantly guiding us in song through that climatic moment when Joey Potter’s perpetual hankering for Dawson Leery finally became corporeal. Indeed, it was Nielsen Chapman’s quivering, professing piano tearjerker “Say Goodnight” that had the privilege of chaperoning Dawson and Joey’s first legitimate lip lock on Dawson’s Creek that was not indebted to a peer initiated dare. Their previous kiss could be chalked up to a provocative game of "truth or dare", featuring friends engaging in some proverbial button pushing for kicks. Nielsen Chapman’s “Goodnight” ruminatively reflects the ethos of built-up, sweaty feelings obtaining a newfound outlet for release, highly sought-after for eons. “Say Goodnight” is the soundtrack of incarcerated feelings, seemingly wasted in a state of restraint, kept at arm’s length for ages, tardily getting that long-awaited, overdue chance at emancipation, at free rein. Listening to “Say Goodnight”, you can hear the legion of hours Joey had spent pining for Dawson to see her as a woman, as the chosen love partner, as opposed to just an occasional confidant and semi-regular movie night buddy. More importantly, you hear that incomparable juncture when timing and reciprocation affiliate at last. “Say Goodnight” is a well-informed barometer, confirming that Beth Chapman Nielsen excels at transmitting a narration of sounds, words, and vocalizations that underline and cognize our "off the record" soul-based sentiments, shepherding them to greater visibility to our own selves.

For most, Dawson’s Creek has long been more a nostalgia-inducing memory than a contemporary fixation, but I find that I am increasingly seeking out music that keeps the series’ starry-eyed, romantic temperament, earthy, earnest vantage point, and disrobed, exposed personal storytelling at the fore of its intentions. Right on cue, when 2018 needs her the most, Beth Nielsen Chapman has resurfaced with a new album, “Hearts of Glass”, which quenches the thirst of the dehydrated, malnourished fragments of our love languages that were formerly equipped and ajar to possibility's gratuities, but turned idle and became unfulfilled from evaded promises. Emerging with leadership acumen, like a clerk that has, in time and reputation, earned the trust, readiness and respect imperative for managerial duties, and supplied with an enterprise of benevolence worth laying it on the line for, the album encourages unabashed vulnerability, and consents to imperfection’s generous profit. “Hearts of Glass” finds Nielsen Chapman largely substituting her usual contraption of choice, the piano, for guitar, and tailoring her sometimes-methodical vocal delivery to the more spacious, less circumscribed sonic flavor of the record, thus allowing the raw, organic humanness of her voice to materialize more habitually.  “Hearts of Glass” is comprised of several re-workings of songs from her back catalogue, dating back to 1990, now rerouted in the new aforementioned, guitar-centric aesthetic, Beth’s own debut of a few tracks that she wrote but were originally recorded by other artists, and best of all, four all-new songs that confirm Nielsen Chapman as a leading writer and conductor of songs that mentor our hearts and enlighten our imaginations. “Hearts of Glass” speaks to our inner architects of creativity and interpersonal association within, the parts of us that are animatedly constructing and remodeling the mural of our afterwards.

Leading off the album is the instrumentally auroral, mood hoisting, expeditious “Come to Mine.” A Nielsen Chapman co-write with Graham Gouldman and Kevin Montgomery, the tune possesses a lyrical commitment to still viewing the world with a sense of wonder and optimism, even in the face of distressing, demoralizing going concerns. Nielsen Chapman composes helpfulness and kinship from separation’s shadows, choosing to cement the binding ties and build community, rather than allow her hesitancies and oversights to dispel her hope and isolate her. The weightlessness of the shuffle-like, oft-zingy rhythm slightly disarms the burden and affliction of Beth’s words in a welcomed manner, soliciting for equilibrium of tone.

Career highlight “Epitaph for Love” makes a compelling case that we don’t need to wait until a funeral’s eulogy to dish out some highly warranted appreciation to love. “Epitaph” urges that we can and should honour and compliment love when it is an active and functional factor, in its prime. Here, Nielsen Chapman implies that perhaps by acknowledging and praising love when it is in a state of resounding wellness, we will stand a better chance of preserving love’s longevity, and sustaining its inimitable, unparagoned virtue. Soothing yet pensive acoustic guitars, atmospheric, wavy production choices (courtesy of producer Sam Ashworth’s essential imprint) and one of the most immersive, devout, involved vocal takes of Nielsen Chapman’s career compile to yield a song that carries the enchanting, sensitive, soul-touching spirit of Dawson’s Creek that I’ve been intently seeking. But, gratefully, “Epitaph for Love” is no wall-to-wall “Creek” retrospective. It also contains several untrodden, differentiating, counter-melodic musical ideas (including the prickly strings that lurk anticipatorily in the distance) that catapult Beth Nielsen’s Chapman’s artistry to the next level, and position her as a reaching sculptor of song with an adept willingness. “Epitaph” situates Nielsen Chapman as voluntarily engaged in a continuing quest to enroll her songwriting learning curve in unheralded classes on unexplored countryside backroads, penetrating prospect’s mystique, while convincingly vouching for the verity of her instrumental and poetic brand of intonation that she has been gradually clarifying and improving since her early 90’s musical inception.

“You’re Still My Valentine” is a consummation of and adherence to that heavier clause of the wedding vows that asks for shatterproof commitment and allegiance no matter what, whether “in sickness or in health.” Playing as a declaration of love and reaffirmation of loyalty to her husband, who was in the throes of a serious battle, fighting for his health, “Valentine” is a bluesy, rickety stunner, led by Nielsen Chapman’s spacey, trance-like electric piano. An after-hours buzz of strung out unrest pervades, emboldened by the appearances of Mark Hill’s spooky, zonked electric bass. An amiss, convoluted timbre is at work here musically, echoing the uncertainty and strain of her husband’s condition. The spectral, apprehensive mood of the instrumentation and production delightfully runs in inverse to Nielsen Chapman’s worshipful, devoted lyrics of reinforcement, directed to her husband, and her affectionate, empathetic vocal inflection. Wisely, Nielsen Chapman sings “Valentine” from the deep-dug burrows of her register, which is where her voice is most piercing.

Beth Nielsen Chapman’s new record “Hearts of Glass” is a formative, expert-like exercise of noble craftsmanship, subtle inventiveness, and authenticity, with an awakened, resonant complexion. “Hearts of Glass” elongates, refines, and introduces both sonically, lyrically, vocally, and emotionally, espousing a principled, democratic approach to mediating between consistency and elasticity. Self-awareness, daydreaming, compassion, simplicity, entanglement and reality are all spoken for lucidly on “Hearts of Glass”, elevating it to Beth Nielsen Chapman’s most satisfying full-length album since her 2002 zenith, “Deeper Still.” Dawson and Joey have long vanquished from our small screens, but the breadth of their profound soulmate connection, and the solace and snags of their love continue to live on robustly in the new songs of Beth Nielsen Chapman. Beth's new record not only encapsulates the lineament and hallmarks of Dawson’s Creek’s stormy, yet altruistic essence. "Hearts of Glass" is a soul-nurturing, love-curating, musically sightly album. It is also the sound of a seasoned, hungry artist three decades into her career, as curious and open to dabbling as ever, lyrically furnishing us with love’s precedence, musically endowing us with memorable modulations that fluctuate between concordant and swollen, and filling our hearts of glass with a voice so gutsy, so trustworthy, that it can break through even the most stern solid.

Nat's Most Anticipated Albums of 2018

Nat's Most Anticipated Albums of 2018

The Essex Green- Untitled 4th studio album- TBD 2018
The Sasha Bell Band- Untitled solo album- TBD 2018
Sweet Talk Radio- Horology- April 6th, 2018
Laura Veirs- The Lookout- April 13th, 2018
Chris Hickey- Lost Dogs in the Courtyard- April 17th, 2018
Michael Feuerstack- Natural Weather- May 25th, 2018
 Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks- Sparkle Hard- May 18th, 2018
Snow Patrol-Wildness- May 25th, 2018
Neko Case- Hell-On- June 1st, 2018
Dar Williams- TBD- 2018 
Amy Annelle- High Country- TBD 2018
The Cowboy Junkies- 16th studio album- TBD 2018
Elk City- Everybody's Insecure- already released
The Decemberists- I'll Be Your Girl- already released
Jann Arden- These are the Days- already released
Yo La Tengo- There's a Riot Going On- already released
Brigid Mae Power- The Two Worlds- already released
Belle and Sebastian- How to Solve Our Human Problems, Pt 2 EP- already released
Belle and Sebastian- How to Solve Our Human Problems, Pt 3 EP- already releasedJohanna Warren- Gemini II-already released
Heather McEntire- Lionheart- already released
Beth Nielsen Chapman- Hearts of Glass- already released
Katell Keineg- Untitled 5th solo album- TBD 2018
Elysian Fields- Untitled 9th studio album- TBD 2018
Jill Sobule- Nostalgia Kills- TBD 2018
Mirah- Untitled 6th solo album- TBD 2018 
Steven Page- Heal Thyself, Pt 2, Discipline- TBD 2018
Fond Farewells (includes Megan Reilly)- Untitled debut album- TBD 2018
Samara Lubelski- Untitled 8th solo album- TBD 2018
Same Waves- Algorithm of Desire- TBD 2018
Sophie B. Hawkins- Free Myself- TBD 2018
My Brightest Diamond- Untitled 5th studio album- TBD 2018
Jenny Lewis- Untitled 4th solo album- TBD 2018
Tracy Shedd- Untitled 6th solo album- TBD 2018
Guster- Untitled 8th studio album- TBD 2018/2019
Mates of State- Untitled 7th studio album- TBD 2018
Nicole Campbell- Untitled 4th solo album- TBD 2018
The Starfolk- Untitled 2nd studio album- TBD 2018
Dido- Untitled 5th solo album- TBD 2018
Corrina Repp- Untitled 7th solo album- TBD 2018
Noe Venable- Untitled 6th solo album- TBD 2018
Jenn Champion- Untitled 5th solo album- TBD 2018
Tiger Saw- Untitled 7th studio album- TBD 2018 


Hannah Marcus- Untitled 6th solo album- TBD 
Versus- Untitled 6th studio album- TBD 
Nina Nastasia- Untitled 7th solo album- TBD
Lucy Kaplansky- Untitled 8th solo album- TBD

Nat's Top Albums of 2017

Nat's Top Albums of 2017

1) Tara Jane O'Neil- self-titled
2) cynthia nelson band- out of the cave
3) Shelley Short- Pacific City
4) Kris Delmhorst- The Wild
5) The Weather Station- self-titled
6) Devon Sproule- The Gold String
7) Jennifer Kimball- Avocet
8) o+s- You Were Once the Sun, Now You're the Moon
9) Amelia Curran- Watershed
10) Destroyer- ken
11) Belle and Sebastian- How to Solve Our Human Problems, Pt. 1 (EP)
12) Sam Amidon- The Following Mountain
13) Lotte Kestner- Off White
14) Sarah White- High Flyer
15) Mary Lorson- Themes from Whatever
16) The Clientele- Music for the Age of Miracles
17) Paula Frazer and Tarnation- What Is and Was
18) Stars- There is No Love in Fluorescent Light
19) Rose Cousins- Natural Conclusion
20) Grandaddy- Last Place
21) David Rawlings- Poor David's Almanack
22) Tori Amos- Native Invader
23) Kathryn Williams- Songs from the Novel Greatest Hits
24) Shannon Wright- Division
25) Juliana Hatfield- Pussycat
26) Aimee Mann- Mental Illness

Cynthia Nelson- "out of the cave" pre-listening write-up

Cynthia Nelson- "out of the cave" pre-listening write-up
Written by Nat Bourgon
Autumn 2017

During my university days, I met a friend who shared a very similar way at looking at the world as me. We both spoke the same soul language. We generated positive vibes through our determination to take the basic and unpronounced happenings we experienced, and look relentlessly for the pizzazz, exquisiteness and loudness in these unassuming, seemingly quiet occurrences. It was about taking any occupancy of time, in and out of our day planners, even the minutes that could be perceived as just filler-like moments of transition, and viewing them as occasions of opportunity, memorable events worth indulging in fully and learning from. We viewed outings such as hour-long coffee hangouts just to yap about our days, and walks across campus from one class to the next as life adventures.

From my ongoing journey with this friend, I have learned that the subtle moments in our lives have a lot to say, if we carve out space to truly listen attentively to their faint but enlightened soundtrack. Now, seven years on from graduating university, adulthood’s responsibilities have tried to encroach upon these beliefs about seeking beauty and magnificence in the everyday. But luckily for me, immersing myself in the realm of creativity has helped keep the burden and encumbrance of life’s more taxing demands at bay, or at least in equilibrium with freedom, awakening and exploration. On the days when I am feeling flat, when the voices of an imaginative lifestyle are barely audible, I am lucky to have the songs of Cynthia Nelson to turn to, for a pint or two of passion, refills on the house.

Cynthia Nelson is my favourite lyricist and poet because she takes words that nobody would think of putting together and places them in the same room, informing them something to the effect of “you might be gems on your own, but together you can be more”. Invigorated by Nelson’s spunky charm and her encouraging push, the words then pool their formidable individual talents together to become harmonious housemates in a communal living scenario that all parties would deem not only functional, but life enriching. It’s Nelson that makes this word bonding happen.

Nelson’s gift is helping words be their best through collaboration with other words. Nelson instructs words that it is through joining forces with other words, especially the words not on each other’s radar, which allows them to offer the supplest quality of feeling possible. Nelson’s choices of word combinations are curious and unexpected. And she has a way of patiently revealing pieces of her message, before her overarching principle lands strikingly, with the transparency of a gut feeling just dawning on you. Her lyrical concerns often start off seeming quite self-reliant and distinct from one another, before the connection between them gradually becomes more and more apparent. Her songs’ thesis statements are first teased, and then strike like a surprise appearance by an adamant gust of wind that snaps you out of your plans, and into a state of attentive absorption with nature’s assertiveness. The realizations in the climax of Nelson’s songs hit you like hunger, and leave you ruminating on what else you have to learn from her.

“I was taken to the ocean

Several times a week

Walked right into the ocean

Every week

Flew right over the ocean

Over the sea

I knew my heart was an ocean

How could this be?

For weeks you drew a question mark

And I answered with a question

For years I was a question mark

And I answered with an answer

How could this be?

Alas

Alas

Alas

For weeks we went to the sea

And I had shovels and sand

Shovels and sand

And a little boy holding my hand

How could this be?

Alas

Developed the pictures so many months after

Believe in a name so much, it’s disaster, disaster, disaster

She knows what I’m after

She knows what I’m after

She knows what I’m after

She knows what I’m after”

(Cynthia Nelson- Ocean Question) (The Sophie Drinker Record- 2004).

It is not just her lyrics that allows for Cynthia Nelson’s music to stand out. Her guitar playing is keen, agile and heated, even during the most instrumentally minimal segments. Her voice is filled with longing and intensity, utilizing a delivery that flip-flops between playful and profound.

One of Cynthia’s contributions to 1998 Retsin album “Sweet Luck of Amaryllis” entitled “We Are the Rings” showcases her songwriting craft. She particularly thrives at these conversational, heartfelt musical and lyrical sketches of the human heart and its intricacies. “Rings” is one of my favourite love songs of all time, and is a great starting point for Nelson newbies.  2001 poetry book “The Kentucky Rules” changed my life. She makes words come to life in such an animated way that stretches the limits of what words can and should do. Her 2006 solo album “Homemade Map” helped me get through a devastating breakup in the autumn of 2012, with its ability to honestly greet a romantic relationship’s shine and its shortcomings with acceptance and appreciation, instead of with denial and resistance.

Cynthia Nelson translates a crinkled emotion to a chance. She finds a new era of satisfaction in an erosion of supposed wrong turns.  Nelson’s music is a light bulb changer for our minds, helping us find optimism in our outliers, and courage in our conditions. Cynthia Nelson’s songs provide close-up, unimpeded “selfies” on life’s smaller-scale moments, zooming in on their textures, arrangements and complexion, revealing to us that these moments are worth making close friends with, instead of merely acquaintances, worth getting to know intimately instead of half-heartedly.

Five years ago, I wrote a review of “Homemade Map” and emailed it to Cynthia Nelson. Cynthia and I have been trading emails ever since, me repeatedly inquiring with her about progress on a new album, her graciously sharing tidbits and progress notes over the years.  

On October 11^th, 2017, Cynthia Nelson releases her new album “Out of the Cave.” Teaming up with new bandmates, the release will don the moniker "Cynthia Nelson Band.” The title seems fitting, as it marks her first full-length album in seven years, since 2010’s “In a Lab.”

The concept of “blue” as a metaphor or motif for love is a thread that has run through Nelson’s work since her career beginnings in the 90’s. Cynthia Nelson’s storytelling has indeed been tinged in blue since her music’s inception. From 1994 track “Pink River” (“I can’t feel blue in my blue room”) through 1998 standout “The Story of One Party” (“my blue eyes were there”) to the 2001 tune “Tangerine Moon” with its implied mention of blue through “catching fish” (whom live in water, which is blue), along to 2004’s  “Ocean Question” (detailing love’s complications) and “Drink the River” (love undone, wishing that washing herself clean of love would be as easy as gulping water), onto 2006’s “Blue Receiver” (about passing the love torch and moving onto a new partner, love’s receiver), all the way to newer EP song “Sand Dollars/Paper Dollars” mentioning being “broken by dreams and seaweed streams”, Nelson has long been reporting on love’s specifications and impact.

I haven’t heard her new album yet, but I know it will be a game-changer as the cover art has the colour blue all over it, in both font and illustration. Life is good! A new Cynthia Nelson album awaits, and with it comes another opportunity to reflect on her deep meditations on love, to gasp at new layers in her wordsmith proficiency, to immerse ourselves in her singular voice of strength and clarity, and to groove to her propulsive, pliable guitar lines.

“Out of the Cave”, Cynthia Nelson’s new album, confidently comes out of the cave and into our speakers on October 11^th, via her Non Stop Co-Op label. It is available via bandcamp at https://cynthianelson.bandcamp.com/album/out-of-the-cave-2

Tara Jane O'Neil- self-titled album review

 Tara Jane O'Neil- self-titled album review

Written by Nat Bourgon

August 6th 2017

Tara Jane O’Neil has an unforgettable, special presence about her that draws listeners into her love-lit, luminous space of sincerity and openness. O’Neil is a free spirit, and her songs depict her nomadic lifestyle of curiosity and exploration. Her sounds emit a patience and repose, while endorsing a striving, active, playful, experiential approach that envisions life as a string of adventures worth taking part in.

Listening to Tara Jane’s music is a spiritual experience. Her music has a cleansing, therapeutic virtue; it filters out the blame and bemoaning, and invites you to try to become friends with your own self. When I hear Tara’s celestial, remedying vocal chord vibrations correspond with her wavy, uninhibited passages of sound, I feel as though I am consorting with angels, soaking up their sage discernments on freedom, balance and alignment.

On her new 2017 self-titled album, O’Neil consciously lets her voice make the leap from supporting instrument rafting in a pond of talkative guitar parts to headlining act with a vibrant soundboard and a higher microphone volume level, providing her tunes with assurance and decisiveness. Partially recorded at the renowned studio “The Loft” (Wilco’s studio) in Chicago, Tara Jane’s songs feel bolder and more amplified this time around, like the sound of a cliffhanger being untangled, the suspense resolving into clarity, the question marks discovering their answers.

Tara Jane’s songs recalibrate my agenda to consent to change’s alterations while putting up less resistance to the resulting incongruent tilts. O’Neil’s work sustains my quests, cements my bond with truth, energizes my means to pursue longstanding dreams, and simplifies my feelings.

O’Neil is a leader worth marching behind in unequivocal support of. To me, her songs stand for the art of seeking, the fascination and euphoria that dwells in passionate pursuits, and the ripples that possibility makes. O’Neil’s music has taught me about how love is a constant seesaw between acceptance and invention; of embracing reality’s structuring caveats and utilizing imagination’s inexhaustible enthusiasm for transformation. In O’Neil’s music, there can be harmony in precarious postures, and there can be heavenly hugs in the midst of testing hurdles.  

Sharing a kinship of directness with her 2000 debut “Peregrine”, Tara Jane O’Neil’s self-titled album models how to push the envelope forward and evolve with the ambitious hankering and aspiring gusto of a flower immersed in the sprouting stage of a coming-of-age flick, the bloom season now and ongoing. That she is able to be such a proponent of assortment and range, while being faithful to her musical wardrobe of coherence that she has been stylishly sporting since the early 90s is an indicator of O’Neil’s uniqueness and importance in the contemporary scene, in both music and in life. O’Neil’s songs make hope more feasible; they make love more conceivable. These are songs worth believing in; songs about what it takes to believe.