As an avid consumer of the credits on albums and CDs (and one of the main reasons I like to have the hard copies) it is quite likely that my introduction to Iris DeMent was triggered by the session men she had on her debut album ‘Infamous Angel’ in 1992 – Stuart Duncan on fiddle and mandolin, Al Perkins on dobro, the late Roy Huskey Jr on bass, Pete Wasner on piano, and a bit of Jerry Douglas on dobro. Or it may have been the endorsement of John Prine.
By whatever means, Iris Dement came into my life. And what a debut album it was, with DeMent’s unconventional yet emotionally intoxicating voice something of a hark back to the Carter Family and a selection of songs that dealt largely with loss in all its forms, sometimes without despair, as in ‘Let the Mystery Be’ about the afterlife.
During the period that DeMent was writing and recording the songs that went into her sophomore masterpiece ‘My Life’, I was attempting to establish my credentials with a new employer that operated in a different culture to the one I had been used to. Many travels abroad to drum up or consolidate client relationships meant a lot of time spent away from home and family. And during that same period, my father was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He died a little sooner than expected and just before ‘My Life’ was released in 1993. I bought the album and made my way through it, just overawed by the song quality, the production and DeMent’s passionate yet poignant voice. And then I came to ‘No Time to Cry’ and let us just say, it was a very emotional moment. DeMent wrote this song in the year after her father died and wrote it, it seems to me, from a feeling less of guilt than resignation at her inability to grieve for such a loss in a way that she might have been able to in younger days when life was not getting so much in the way.
When she sings “well I stayed home long enough to lay him in the ground And then I caught a plane to do a show in Detroit town”, for me it was catching a plane for a business meeting maybe in Stockholm or Geneva or some such city; or she sings “I’ll take a beer from the ‘fridgerator and go sit out in the yard”, for me it was a beer from the barman and go sit on a barstool. Indeed getting older and a busy life allows no time to cry, but I wished I had had the time. I certainly listened to this track many times in 1993 (and since) and found the time over and over.
Any number of Iris DeMent songs would qualify for this feature, but for me this song is a no-brainer. It was recorded by Merle Haggard a few years later and by country star Joe Nichols with an unexpectedly good interpretation, and both with feeling. But the genius of the song can only be best interpreted by the writer, and I will be forever indebted to Iris DeMent for writing it.
Thank you Fred. I agree it’s an extremely moving song and one of many written and recorded by the wonderful Iris DeMent. If only we could tempt her to tour in the UK again!
Excellent feature Fred. I came late to Iris (through Nanci Griffith) and trying to make up for lost time . My music partner does a super version of ‘Easy’s Gettin’ Harder Every Day’ when we play live together. Puts my songs to shame x
The reference by the song reviewer to the Carter Family was an apt one; additionally, I can relate personally to the notion that it is far easier to express tender emotions when one is young than when one is older, but since I retired and became a “senior citizen,” I’ve discovered that, once again, I am in touch with, and able to more easily express, any sadness.