See You on the Moon

Tift Merritt approaches her artistry with a commitment that is inspiring. Her tools are sincerity and simplicity and the result is beautiful. Listening to See You On the Moon is like taking a journey with her to some internal world of emotion--and returning wiser than you were before.

I have had a love for the music of Tift Merritt since I first heard her 2008 album Another Country.
 "Beauty is letting your guard down all the way in hands you trust" She sings on the opening track, Something to Me, and all of her work seems to be an attempt to live up to this ideal. Her music is never overly groundbreaking or experimental, but it is reassuring in its practiced feel. Her lyrics lack ornamentation, but they are all the more stirring because of their warm austerity. She explores well-worn subjects like love with a perspective that is both individual and refreshing. Her debut album, Bramble Rose, back in 2002, began with the line "You’re not my boyfriend. I don’t want a boyfriend" from the song Trouble Over Me. From the moment I heard that pronouncement, so clear and yet so unexpected, I was drawn in. 


~~~


See You on the Moon is both a continuation of the exploration practiced on her preceding albums and an act of growth in its own right. She returns to some recurrent themes from her previous works--among them the sense of personal drive and connection to nature that surfaces in many of her songs. While Another Country utilized the imagery of night and day in its lyrics, See You on the Moon seems to focus more on the feel of sun and sky, wind and rain, all as metaphors for the human condition. Many of these songs arise from personal experience, and solitary reflection, as expressed in the song The Things that Everybody Does:
" I walked all over this country.
I went down to the sea.
I talked a lot with the sun and the sky.
I didn't talk much with anyone else really."
This album seems to be all about connectedness that can come in many forms. In this case, it is the immersion of individual in the environment, but other forms arise out of the album's exploration. Merritt thrives on the trust found in close connections--the support that people seek in one another and the encouragement that they strive to pass on to the world. 
"Maybe the world feels like me,
Wishing someone would sing it a song.
About how there's a lot of good here
About how it's done nothing wrong."
She sings in Engine to Turn, which seems like a personal statement of purpose, even more than anything else on this album. It would be my favorite track, if I had to choose, but the truth is that every song on this album speaks to me on a deep level. This is an album that unfurls its secrets further with every listen. Every song is a journey, and the album sustains itself from start to finish--a rare feat in a world that often seems too rushed for my liking.