Tift Merritt had been a regular visitor to the UK, so it’s somewhat remarkable that this was her second gig in this country for eight years – and with Oxford behind her there was only Glastonbury ahead and then this latest fleeting visit to our shores would be done. Alongside the Covid induced ban on touring, Merritt has also been off the road whilst raising her daughter and taking a research role at Duke University and that latter role is part of why she is touring again as a deputation from Duke were participating in London Climate Change Week. And that’s a lot – as she explained before the gig that now her music is also an opportunity to help shape public policy, and how there’s a substantial risk to the music makers going forward in the shape of Artificial Intelligence further prescribing what actually gets heard, and potentially (and this is maybe more directly an issue for pop music genres) cutting out the creatives and generating variations on the theme of what’s already been successful.
There is a counter argument to this, and it was made within a few seconds of Tift Merritt stepping onto the stage at Oslo and launching into an energetic rendition of ‘All The Reasons We Don’t Have To Fight‘, taking possession of the crowd immediately. It’s as if she’d never been away. And Tift Merritt has a dozen or more equally powerful songs she could have followed on with, but instead boldly took things down into the stark emotional landscape of ‘Locks‘ with a sparse guitar accompaniment, jagged, and bruising as she sings “I’m trying to sing all the locks off your heart / … / please let me sing all the locks off my heart / I’m ill equipped, unprepared, but not hiding.” It’s brutally honest, and that is why it is beautiful.
A pair, back to back, from ‘Travelling Alone‘ gave the opportunity for further contrasts. Inspired by the sight of blossom in the snow when Merritt was living in New York ‘Spring‘ pours out an optimistic viewpoint of rebirth and commitment to the future whilst ‘Travelling Alone‘ itself allows the listener to feel every mile of the singer’s journey whilst she herself is a blur of constant motion, gleefully trying out her rock and roll guitar moves. There’s more movement – this time to the keyboards, and a chance to show off her high heeled boots “I have to take it where I can get it” she laughingly informed us before settling in to play with a new song inspired by her work at Duke and also from reading a newspaper story stating “How to get the best out of AI – ask it to act as if…” which inspired the thought that maybe it was more important to teach humans to act as if they were human before handing on the future to an AI acting as if it cared, emphasised, felt. It’s a song that makes its own point as much through the performance as the words – could an AI bot put this passion in? Or ask for a cold beer because the backstage beer had been provided without a bottle opener? Or worry, several times, about the audience as we were “so polite” and quiet – even after several reassurances that we were, indeed, having a fine time.
That audience silence worked to our advantage on the off-mike ‘Satisfied Mind‘, sung at stage front to honour one of Merritt’s early heroes Jean Shepherd. It’s all country, and played on a well worn acoustic guitar. The looping that backs up a capella singing of a song about endless sewing and endless laundry took us right into “O Brother, Where Art Thou” territory.
It’s been twenty years since the Grammy nominated “Tambourine” was first released, and in celebration of that it is getting a vinyl reissue later this year, alongside an album of demo’s – so not surprisingly the set contained a couple or more cuts from that landmark release. ‘Write My Ticket‘ captures the doubts of the waiting to make it singer-songwriter, whilst ‘Good Hearted Man’ glows with the passionate blend of gospel and Southern Soul
Thankfully, because of what it naturally hints at, there were several new songs – ‘Everyday Singing‘ had been inspired by letters written between two activist women in the Reagan Years. With just acoustic guitar it was incredibly strong for a first hearing, with Tift Merritt throwing herself into the declaration “May love write the story between us / may love fill the space that remains“. It’ll be magnificent with a band. Not that there was any part of the back catalogue that got neglected – with a finale of the title track of Merritt’s first release “Bramble Rose” which made for a delicate and moving closer. There was the encore though, and with a generosity of spirit Tift Merritt acquiesced to cries of “Virginia” despite saying she hadn’t played it for a long time – muscle memory was clearly strong as ‘Virginia, No One Can Warn You‘ flowed as easy as a country road. ‘Stray Paper‘ took us on a rocking detour, and was fabulous as was the real final song of the evening, another new one sung standing at that keyboard. We’d seen many sides of Tift Merritt on this evening, and they were all good – it’s great to have her back touring and hopefully back in the UK again soon.
