“Welcome to / the bright sadness / the humble madness / the sacred gladness.” Pennsylvania’s literary troubador, Matt Wheeler, has put together a folk pop album filled with poems, essays, and beautifully string-, piano-, and guitar-adorned songs that tell A Hard History of Love. In three parts, the love story between small town Minnie and Tol, the story of embracing homeless strangers out in the cold, and receiving back the “prodigal son”, it is a story that as Wendell Berry pens in his poem, “The Wild Birds,” is about “The way we are, we are members of each other, all of us, everything.”
That is what won me over to Wheeler’s music, his literary feel, his penchant for heart-warming story telling, and his hopeful message of “love, and loss, and cost, this shared presence, this holy mystery.” “When the frost is on the pumpkin, and the leaves are burning red,” he sings in the particularly blue grass song, “The Ballad of Tol & Minnie.” He turns a good phrase, and the layout of the album, punctuated by moving essays often overlaps lyrics and themes with the songs, giving helpful repetition and adept album construction.
“Joy in the morning: it’s not the product of an unencumbered resistance free life. Joy is like a seed, planted deep in the earth, that pushes, pushes, pushes through the darkness to see the bright, to taste the light. That maybe morning, there is a hint of hope…And the good news is that we are not alone.” Wheeler offers his concept album in a world that may be forgetting the power of a good story, the power of embracing the stranger, the power of a life lived for love of lover, stranger, and son or daughter.
Like much folk storytelling, these are not new stories so much as time-weathered stories with a traditional ethos, but with a modern folk pop musical presentation. The album is followed by the songs in instrumental form, sans lyrics, which sometimes, for me, recalls Jars of Clay’s brilliant sense for melody and harmony. If you want a wholesome album, that digs deep into the rural experience of cold winters, wandering strangers, and romantic and familial love, definitely check this album out.
Prism Reviews 