Kevin Gordon “You Can’t Hurt Me No More” – love, and a subtext

Kevin Gordon

Kevin Gordon’s new single ‘You Can’t Hurt Me No More‘ – co-written with Kim Richey – is a slow burning rocker, and is taken from his new album ‘The In Between.‘  It’s obviously a love song – or lost love song – as Gordon sings of being “up all night / I love you still / Against my will / My stupid heart beats on and on / Got no pride don’t care what’s wrong.”  But consider that ‘The In Between‘ is Kevin Gordon’s first release since his diagnoses of – and recovery from – throat cancer and some of the defiance in the voice makes sense in a very different way.

The diagnoses came during the pandemic, which had already disrupted the album’s recording schedule, as Kevin Gordon has described: “I knew something was up when the first scan results came back; I drove straight to New Orleans and stayed pretty much out of my mind for three days. I was terrified, and thought I would lose it completely if I sat in my house staring at the wall any longer.  They were using words like malignant, which scared the hell out of me. Those second tracking sessions were more emotional for me, personally.”  Which is something of an understatement – with guitars, drums, and bass completed for most tracks but vocals for only one or two, the sessions had to go on indefinite pause while Gordon underwent radiation and chemotherapy.

When his singing voice started to return to him, making music felt urgent and vital in a new way. “Unfortunately, nothing changed with my voice!,” he jokes. “But it was all that much sweeter on the other end. The first gig back, a short solo set broadcast live on radio, it was pretty scary, the starkness of it. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go.

About Jonathan Aird 2893 Articles
Sure, I could climb high in a tree, or go to Skye on my holiday. I could be happy. All I really want is the excitement of first hearing The Byrds, the amazement of decades of Dylan's music, or the thrill of seeing a band like The Long Ryders live. That's not much to ask, is it?
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