Richmond Fontaine – The Fitzgerald

If you’ve been to Reno, Nevada, recently, you know that the “Biggest Little City in the World” is long past its heyday — as much as it ever had one. Even in its prime, Reno (pop. 180,000) was best-known for the twin pillars of gambling and divorce (they go quite well together, don’t they?).

Reno is also the hometown of Richmond Fontaine’s bare-wire songwriter Willy Vlautin, and the town’s massive underbelly is perfect fodder for the kind of demoralized characters he portrays so movingly. Though he’s long since left for greener pastures (Portland, Oregon, actually), Vlautin hunkered down in Reno’s Fitzgerald Casino (trademarked slogan: “Committed to Making You Lucky”) and composed these songs of anguish, violence and isolation. There’s enough death, pain, loneliness and desperation here to make even Dr. Phil reach for the sleeping pills.

These are characters who are “broken, blown, lost, and blue,” who have “disappeared into heartache.” They are on a “black road” and are giving themselves to “darkness,” which is, in fact, everywhere; even the “Casino Lights”, so often a symbol of optimism and possibility, “only bring darkness to the night.”

What’s most striking here is an almost complete lack of hope. These people can’t escape their fates, and you’re not sure how much they even care to. If there’s any hope at all, it’s in the solace and sympathy of personal relationships, but even this does not seem to offer joy; rather, merely a respite from the suffering.

The mostly acoustic, understated support behind Vlautin’s affecting croak only serves to intensify the dramatic details of these accounts. Whether Vlautin was looking out his window at the Fitz or walking the seedy streets of town, or simply conjuring these images from his own past, it’s amazing how sharply he imagines his characters’ lives and struggles. For those who find beauty and meaning in bleak tales of sorrow, this is an evocative, mesmerizing work.