Pazz and Jop 1974 #12

Gram Parsons – Grievous Angel

The mythology of the singer-songwriter leans heavily on the second part, singing on its own somehow being perceived as a much less considerable artistic accomplishment. Squaring this with Gram Parsons is tricky because roughly half the songs he recorded – counting his first four albums as part of three different bands (it seems Gram did not always play well with others) – were written by someone else. (Showing the delusion of music writers when discussing their heroes, I read one article that redefined “prolific” by applying it to his output.) The peak – or low – of this comes here on “Grievous Angel”, where he covers his own “Hickory Wind” from the one record he made with The Byrds. One wonders what mix of admiration for others and inability to generate enough of his own material played into this.

There is, of course, no way of knowing what shape – if any – this record might have taken had Parsons lived to see it through to completion, let alone where the rest of his career might have gone. Certainly, his widow made some changes (allegedly due to jealousy over the large part played by Emmylou Harris in her husband’s artistic life), but even without that, there will always be the question of whether Parsons might have made different choices if he had seen it through to completion rather than keeping busy killing himself piecemeal. What we have instead is the idea of a Parsons record, rather than a Parsons record itself. 

Yet, such quibbles aside, what remains is a firecracker of an album, and one that somehow and contrarily feels more complete than his previous record, “GP”. The opener, “Return of the Grievous Angel”, is a mighty twang of a road song from a singer who’s had a few too many cigarettes and one too many beers. A lovely mellow piano stands out in this tale of a weary traveller who knows where he wants to go: “straight back home to you”. The mournful “Hickory Wind” is thematically similar, only this time the longing is for the home left behind.

There is a lot of loss on this record. “Hearts on Fire” has subtle piano and weepy steel guitar with nifty little picking underneath in a tale that mixes anger and a desire to be free with the enduring frozen-in-time love of the betrayed. The delicate rhythms of “Brass Buttons” are a sort of sense memory as the narrator recounts the details that distinguished a lost love to him. The ambiguous tale in “$1000 Wedding” – is the bride-to-be deceased, or did she merely abandon the groom-to-be at the altar? – is poignant either way, with sombre piano and Parsons’ most impassioned vocal.

When the tempo picks up, Parsons’ rock side doesn’t let him down. Honky tonk piano and southern rock guitar pace the rollicking tale of a girl who can get you to do things you otherwise wouldn’t on “I Can’t Dance”. The faux live version (the cheers and other audience sounds were created in the studio) of “Cash on the Barrelhead” races along, and “Ooh Las Vegas”, the only track on which Harris is formally co-credited, feels like a song that Elvis Presley should have covered.

The album ends with “In My Hour of Darkness”, a spiritual tale of friends who are no longer with us. The second verse could be about Parsons himself, and whether he was foretelling his early end or merely mocking how others perceived him is unknowable. Spiritual doesn’t mean religious, and while some have suggested that he was turning to God “In my hour of darkness / In my time of need”, this is inconsistent with how Parsons was living his life at the time. This makes me wonder if he was cynically parroting the advice he received from others in difficult times. And what he asks of God – to be granted vision and speed – are not stereotypical Christian desires. If Parsons is talking to the Almighty, it’s because he’s looking for a quick way out, not turning himself over to the Lord.

Parsons was a complicated person (but then, aren’t we all?), and whether his genius was amplified or blunted by his dedication to abusing substances is the kind of question that can be asked about a lot of artists. His star burned only briefly and was never very bright during his lifetime, but I’ve listened now to every album he was ever a credited artist on and there isn’t a dud in the regrettably small bunch. A week or so back, I was discussing music of the early 1970s with a similarly aged colleague and I mentioned Parsons in passing with a group that included Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell and Neil Young. Those are his peers, and that they are still here and creating while Parsons is not is a tragedy. He was every bit their equal then.