Before the first note leaves the speakers, 'Gypsy Tales' - a new single from one of Brewster's favorite sons - already has you in another space & place & time. The combination of the two words immediately re-centers ... there's the impression of folklore inspired by those transient spirits more concerned with essence than plot. An apparition's parable.
Then the music starts and what's already come to mind now combines with country-folk twang ..., you're far removed from the glowing blue light of the slate in your pocket and have forgotten about the overly bubble-designed modern SUV you're sitting in. Maybe you're smelling shoe leather, remembering Robert Hunter, Americana, seeing sunlight shine through the trees in the woods by the water.
By the time the lyrics come to sit with you and tell their story, this painting has defined its edges and the lonesome, tired melancholy of the Inevitable assumes its role as the beating, sage heart of the song. It's powerful and deep, a slow current that's always been running, that will run always.
The images swirl. They're drawn clearly in a lyric or two, then swept away like a mandala before you blink. Is a show ending? Has the curtain come down on someone's Big Show? Are we packing up metaphors? Dylan's Queen has her thumb on the scale (Jane, you bitch), taking people and ideas off the board, turning friends into strangers, wiping out familiarity - or maybe the missing familiarity is between yourself and your own world, wherever that is. And just like the soul of the Beats, and the best of Hunter himself, there's the reminder that no matter how many times you cross the water at the exact pass, you never step in the same river twice - it'll never be the same. Or that's what they say.
As the song settles in and gets comfortable, it sits back, puts its boots up on the coffee table. Now it'll show a tempo that teases major-key moments (as Jimmy Doyle meant it). One of the most pleasing-to-the-ear parts of the track comes at the top of that second verse when guitar fills between the lines breadcrumb the accompanying backup vocal, a voice that parts the clouds and let's the sun shine a little brighter through the breeze and the leaves. What the beams of light sees, however, is a worn down, tramp inspired body reminiscent of Newman in COOL HAND LUKE. And the prisoner imagery is no accident.
There's that Inevitability again - the bound and bloodied hands don't belong to feet who're trying to escape, they're biding time knowing they'll be splitting the slaughterhouse soon enough. It's dreamlike - the sense of time is Tralfamadorian. It's in this second verse where the song stretches out to its full potential, knocking over an ashtray with its boot heel, feet swinging in time. The scope of the tune isn't defined just by the tickling guitar flourishes and the fallen cherub's backing vocals but, again, the forlorn images that're drawn. The long road, the deep river, the row into desolation. The brokedown bed in the back of a bluebird.
But there is a saving grace. There aren't any grieving angels here - yes, there's a sadness, but the release shall be peaceful. That's the resin the song leaves for you - if you're aware of the Inevitable before it arrives to collect, how torn up can you be, what else were you expecting? A fond memory is fine but there is no such thing as "too soon" - understanding the precarious and fleeting nature of things as they are should keep you from wallowing in the Hallmark aisle.
We don't want to play spoiler and reveal some of the best lyrics in the song here but it's in the phrase turns that seal the second verse through the end of the song where Josh really has passed the point of his pen through the eye of the needle. There's a certainty, listening to these lines roll through his molasses growl, that he could have written endless bars for this particular spark - like "Hallelujah" or "Like A Rolling Stone." When the kernel of the impulse is that strong, there may be an endless natural spring to articulate it. The spring flows from the center and is always there to take a drink when you're thirsty.
Stylistically, this song will likely be legitimately popular - and by that I mean it's a "pop" song. It's got a sing-a-long hook, it's paced well, and the lyrics, because they come from that molten center, are relatable at the core. For all the hullabaloo made of the sentiments here, Josh isn't writing a convoluted Bergman movie - one of his gifts is the ability to translate the deep and meaningful with simply - like Frost eventually did and Leonard Cohen comes to mind again. Josh's other originals, particularly "Save Me" and "Sanctuary," possess that same quality.
It may all come back to the point of the pen ... in the few original songs we've been exposed to, Ayala's been able to grab the emotion that powers the song with an accuracy that probably looks like catching a butterfly by its wings. When the butterfly is still in your hand, its beauty is frozen there to describe in a detail that anyone who's seen it has only glimpsed in passing. This may be why Josh's songs have the distinct, and truly rare, quality of sounding like you've heard them before: he's able to see the base atom of an emotion and grab it by the wings.
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Once of the busiest acts on the Lower Cape, Josh performs in many iterations and more than regularly through the summer (solo, Josh & Friends, Dirty Water Dance Band), so likely any night you're looking for a live show, he can hold you down. Get out, support local music, and, when the single is available next Friday, 27 June 25, find 'Gypsy Tales' on joshayalamusic.com and let us know if you agree with our take.
We'll probably be at Alley BBQ + Bowling that night watching the Dirty Water Dance Band tear it down out on the lanes - we hope, but we don't know if we'll see you there.
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