Rosie Thomas – When We Were Small
It’s the catch in the voice; the catch that’s not quite a hiccup, not a cry, but an achingly lovely double-clutch, a double negative making odd of even, that makes Rosie Thomas’ unguarded vocals so compelling. It is precisely this quality that made the unknown singer stand out on Sub Pop’s 2000 tribute to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, where she imbibed “Wages Of Sin” (a bonus-track collaboration with Damien Jurado) with multi-faceted humanity: fragility tempered by strength, loss met with windfall, exhaustion greeted by second and third winds. All of which frames When We Were Small as an album of intimate portraits, with reclamation of innocence its thematic core.
Arching round spare and elegantly simple guitar and piano, the catch in Thomas’ voice serves each story. Drunk on the plain truth and hopeful beyond diminishing returns, Thomas finds that holy wild place of purity in the telling. Be it supplication to a lover to never leave (“October”), the pain of a broken family (“Farewell”), or the twisty longing for both untethered freedom (“Wedding Day”) and anchored liberation (“Have You Seen My Love?”), When We Were Small is the secret that sits in the center and knows. Neither bitter nor blind, these songs are special: generous and heart-full melodies speaking directly to the part of us that simply refuses to give up.