Birthed during a period of isolation, his new album displays a deft touch for sensitive songwriting.
‘Dusty Passports and Empty Beds’ came about as a result of the pandemic’s grip. When the lockdown was mandated in the spring of 2020, this Texas troubadour holed up with his family at his mother’s home in Dublin, TX to ride out whatever was to come. Suddenly putting the brakes on life as he and everyone else had known it was jarring, leaving McInroe with some serious stress to process. In his case, self-therapy through the creation of eight of the nine songs on the album helped him work through the sadness and difficulties of dealing with masked mandates, isolation and even some deaths that he speaks of in the title song. “We had to say goodbye to John Prine and Paul English, Billy Joe and Jerry Jeff. Said hello to hard times and lean living.”
The one cover on the album is John Prine’s ‘Lonesome Friends of Science’ from the revered musician’s final album (‘The Tree of Forgiveness,’ 2018). Throughout McInroe’s album you will hear Prine’s influence mixed with portions of Tom Waits and Kris Kristofferson, who discovered Prine in 1970 performing at a club in Chicago and helped him land his first recording deal. Prine sung about the world ending any day and being okay with it since he wasn’t really living in it anyway, instead choosing to reside deep down in his head.
McInroe’s admiration for Prine is on full display in ‘John’s Songs.’ He shows off his storyteller chops on a spoken word intro and is consoled by his little niece who reminds him that he still has his family. Tears flowed as did the Handsome Johnny’s, Prine’s favourite cocktail, a vodka and ginger ale that he drank while smoking a nine-mile cigarette. Any readers wishing to celebrate Prine with a cocktail can head here for mixing instructions. You’re on your own with the cigarette.
A bleak outlook for the future of life on Earth is contrasted by the buoyant country vibe of ‘Ey Brother,’ which begins with references to Cat Stevens and The Beatles – “It’s a wild world ey brother. Yes, I saw the news today.” Matt Tedder’s riffing guitar fills and Jeff Dazey’s brassy saxophone kick in after McInroe’s acoustic guitar carries the first verse, serving to elevate the gloom and doom visions of people merged with machines and being blown to smithereens.
The Waits’ influence comes forth in the solemn country blues of ‘Thanksgiving Night’ as a disparate collection of loners with no place to go for a homecooked meal gather to find sustenance at a nondescript diner. Despite not spending the holiday at home with friends and family around a table replete with turkey and all the trimmings, McInroe’s narrator manages to be thankful. “Though it ain’t like the old days. We still got our choice of pies.”
That McInroe chose to open the album with ‘Big Year,’ brimming with possibilities while the spectre of the pandemic looms, serves as an ironic jest before taking a journey through the nine songs. “Yeah they said it’d be a big year ….. And then things got weird.” Perhaps it was a result of the long days and weeks during the process of writing songs while everything had slowed way down, but you could envision McInroe sitting in a quiet room, veiled in melancholy but wearing a stubborn grin, strumming his guitar and wondering why there was so much turmoil. As he so succinctly put it in the opening lines of the title song, “If hindsight is 20/20, I hope to never look back again.”
No regrets, then, is the ongoing message in ‘Eat Drink and Be Merry,’ a song that appears to be a cross between Jimmy Buffett’s ‘Party at the End of the World’ and the Gospel of Luke where Jesus shares the parable of the rich farmer who blithely tells himself to just relax and enjoy life to its fullest. The constant in both works is that one day we’re all going to die, but before that day arrives do we indulge ourselves in pleasures or fill ourselves with the spirit of generosity and kindness? Either way, listening to ‘Dusty Passports and Empty Beds’ can be time well spent.
