Jon Itkin – Big Gold Guitar In The Sky
It’s titled “Ten-Pack Of Years” (as in “what the hell’s a decade but a…”), and it’s hit me harder than any song I’ve crossed paths with in ’08. The opening couplet — “We used to make love out in the back lawn/Now we’re eating dinner with the TV on” — expresses a ten-year ache that the young guy behind the song, Brooklyn-based Jon Itkin, couldn’t possibly have faced unless he got hitched when he was 15. Later, after a night of recollection and Nebraska, the protagonist’s recurring, wife-directed declaration “I remember you” becomes filled with the cautious joy of rediscovery. Itkin’s voice, old for its age and backed by mournful pedal steel, sells it all: the despair, the search, and the hope. Elsewhere, Itkin deftly swings (“American Blood”), trucks (“Bismarck”), and soothes (“Sing Rosetta”). He’s far from the first singer-songwriter/roots-rocker whose songs pray to Neil Young, Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle and Jay Farrar. But not all prayers are answered with this much promise.