Fred Eaglesmith – Milly’s Cafe

Fred Eaglesmith’s new album starts in a driving rain 40 miles west of Michigan and concludes with a small-town drought that ends badly. In between, Eaglesmith sings of people coping with loss — of lovers, youth, dreams. It’s going to take a whole lot of water to wash this pain away.

After a couple decades of criss-crossing North America playing roadhouses, coffee bars, and any other little place that would have him, Eaglesmith is an expert on American life. His characters ring true, and he places them in specific locales: Leavenworth, Kansas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Cincinnati, Ohio; half the cities in Texas.

In the past, Eaglesmith has written his share of downright rib-smacking funny songs, but the closest he gets to humor here is the rather acerbic “Mrs. Hank Williams”. It’s hard to tell if he’s singing about a woman who thinks she’s as exalted as Hank Williams’ wife should have been, or if he’s telling a historical tale of the wife who stood guard against potential replacements outside the stage door. Either way, the song ends before the inevitable split.

Not so elsewhere. Several road songs put miles between good men and the women who used to love them. The most eloquently sad piece is “Rocky”, is a letter from an old man in a retirement home to his onetime cowboy partner. Eaglesmith moves in and out of the sparks of memory and the sad emptiness of the present day for two people who drifted apart when their glory days ended.