ALBUM REVIEW: Paul Thorn’s ‘Life Is Just A Vapor’ Faces Hard Truths With Hope

Paul Thorn opens his new album, Life Is Just A Vapor, with a terse but timely sermon. “Tough times don’t last, tough people do,” the 60-year-old Tupelo, Miss., native sings over a loping, horn-accented R&B groove. Then he goes on: “If they can do it, maybe we can too.”

It’s quintessential Thorn: facing up to hard truths, but also offering hope. And doing it with an infectiously down-home music and plainspoken, humor-laced profundity that make his faith sound undeniable.

It’s what you might expect from the son of a preacher. But the former professional boxer is also the nephew of a pimp, as he has documented in the past, and his work reflects the experiences of someone who knows both sides of the street, so to speak —saints and sinners — giving him a distinctive credibility.

He even has a song here about a retired pimp (not his uncle), a slide-goosed, riff-rocker called “Chicken Wing” that shows how Thorn can paint a vivid portrait with brutal economy. “I’m in the winter of my life/ I love my dog, I like my wife/ I wash the dishes, I sweep the floor/ I keep a 12-gauge behind the door,” he sings on the song’s last verse. And it’s hard to think of anyone but Thorn who could come up with the funky “Geraldine & Ricky,” about a ventriloquist evangelist who travels around spreading the gospel to children. (Ricky is the dummy, and Geraldine is based on a real person.)

Like “Tough Times Don’t Last,” the tangy, acoustic-textured “Life Is Just a Vapor” also offers up some homespun wisdom: “Every day is a gift,” so savor it while you can. Sounds mundane enough, but Thorn begins it with this striking couplet: “Me and John Prine was eating ice cream/ at the Doubletree Inn Suite 1019.” (That really happened.)

Thorn approaches affairs of the heart from various angles. “Courage My Love” is a brawny heartland rocker about what it takes to make it together; “I Knew” is an unabashed love song; and “I Love You Like a Cigarette” comes close to overdoing a metaphor. Meanwhile, “I’m Just Waiting” ponders impending romantic doom; “She Will” offers a hard-bitten warning to someone dating his ex; and “Wait” takes a hilarious look at a first-time Tinder experience, with semi-rapped verses and a “Louie, Louie”-like riff.

Thorn closes with the reflective, hymnlike “Old Melodies,” which proves to be a perfect bookend to “Tough Times Don’t Last.” The singer has been bruised by life, but remains unbowed, leaving the listener with a lingering spirit of resilience: “’Amazing Grace’ used to be our favorite song,” Thorn sings. “Now it’s ‘We Shall Overcome.’”

Paul Thorn’s Life Is Just a Vapor is out Feb. 21 via Thirty Tigers.