Lori McKenna Presents 'Unglamorous' Debut Album

Staff Writer

   If asked if I were a major fan of country singer Faith Hill, my answer would be no. Despite that answer, I owe one thing to Hill. She brought much needed attention to singer-songwriter Lori McKenna when she covered four of McKenna’s songs on her 2005 album “Fireflies,” including the hit single, “Stealing Kisses.” She asked McKenna to join her and husband Tim McGraw on tour, which enlarged McKenna’s fan base.

Courtesy of Lori McKenna's MySpace

Talented - Lori McKenna writes and sings country music songs. Artists such as Faith Hill covered several of McKenna's songs.

    McKenna, first and foremost a wife and a mother, lives in Stroughton, Mass.  She and husband, Gene, a local plumber, live quietly in the small town outside of Boston raising their five children.

   As an accomplished songwriter, McKenna has written songs that have been recorded by Hill, McGraw and Sara Evans. She even co-wrote three songs with teen pop star turned lyrical genius, Mandy Moore on Moore’s latest album “Wild Hope.”

   “My priority is, I want to write great songs, timeless songs, songs that affect people,” McKenna said on her official Web site. “But if I have the blessing to be able to share the way I interpret my songs with people, then I want to do that, too.”

    In McKenna's biography section, Hill said, “I don’t remember ever being impacted by a songwriter the way I was with her. Her writing is masterful, with a pureness that is completely unaffected. The songs are such a great combination of depth and realness … there's just this indescribable collision of innocence and honesty in her writing.”

    “Unglamorous,” released August 2007, serves as McKenna’s major label debut.  She released four independent albums prior, including “Paper Wings & Halo,” “Pieces of Me,” “The Kitchen Tapes” and “Bittertown.” McGraw produced her debut for Warner Brothers Nashville.

  “I know you / I know where you go when you want to be alone / I know just how hard you work and how much money you bring home,” McKenna sings on the opening track, titled “I Know You”

   The album kicks off with a country-folk tune with a guitar and a banjo accompanying lyrics that linger for days.  The song, obviously written for her husband, provides proof of the joys of an honest relationship.  She moves right into the title track “Unglamorous.”

   “How wonderful the rhinestones on black satin shoes / How beautiful the ones I never get to use / No frills, no fuss, perfectly us, unglamorous / Frozen dinner, jelly glass of wine / Tastes just fine / Two bread winners / Five kids in short time, with eyes just like mine."

  McKenna tells the story of her “unglamorous” life.  From this song, and the entire album, a light shines who she is as a person. In this perfectly written country song, she sings as a housewife and as a mother.

  “And I hope she can fix you / I hope she's someone who will never let you down / I hope she reminds you nothing of me / And as crazy as crazy as it sounds / I hope she's beautiful,” she sings.  “I stood and watched the stars fade / Right there from your eyes / So baby, I think I know just what your next lover will be like.”

Courtesy of Lori McKenna's MySpace

  McKenna reveals a clear message in this song – “There ain't nobody who needs nobody.” She sings about something everyone feels and wants for their loved ones if something were to happen and one should pass.

   “Baby, I'm not crazy / I just love the way you look at me / Baby, I'm not crazy / I just expect ecstasy / And I'm trying not to take everything to the extreme / I'm wide awake and you're still my dream / Baby, I'm not crazy,” she sings on another perfect country song called “I’m Not Crazy.”

   “Falter,” demands your attention. The fifth track on the album features lyrics and soft music that tell a heartbreaking and beautiful story. Hill sings background vocals on the song.

  As she tells the story of a boy she grew up with becoming the “new town bum,” she sings, “Why don't we open up / Knowing that we all falter / And when will we learn / When will we learn to ... / Open up / Knowing that we all falter / When will we learn / I said, when will we learn / When will we learn to reach out for each other.”

    “Falter” should be released to country radio.  It has the potential to become huge.

  “All you really need is someone to be here / Someone who never lets you disappear / And I will be that witness to your life / This may just be a softer place to fall / But somebody will answer when you call / And I will be that witness to your life,” she sings on a country-rock song about friends called “Witness to Your Life.”

   The next song, “Drinkin’ Problem,” holds honest and jaw-dropping lyrics performed with an acoustic guitar with McGraw singing along in the background.

  “I’ve been thinkin’ / While you’ve been drinkin’ / And I know thinkin’ is the last thing on your mind / And I’ve been hoping to get this out in the open / And hoping we ain’t running out of time,” she sings. “I think I’ve got a drinkin’ problem.”

  If “Drinkin’ Problem" doesn’t catch your attention, my favorite song, “How to Survive” will.

  “You knocked those pictures right off the wall / I slammed the bathroom door so hard it doesn't close right at all / Last week we broke my mother's favorite serving plate / All just casualties of a love that's lost it's way,” she sings on perhaps the greatest country song to be written in years. “You and I baby, don't even know how to fight / We don't know nothin' 'bout nothin' / Except how to survive.”

   McKenna and her lyrics for “How to Survive” deserve a Grammy award nomination and a win.

   A more upbeat song called “Written Permission” follows.

   “I have laid down my guns and ammunition / You can go now / You can leave now / This is my written permission,” she sings to a cheating flame from the past as she channels a style similar to Miranda Lambert’s “Kerosene.”

   “Well, I remember on our wedding day / Thinking how those flowers would all just fade away / And it seemed like such a waste of beauty,” she sings on “Confetti.”

Courtesy of Lori McKenna's MySpace

   This song, more rock than country, contains impressive chords as well as lyrics.  Confetti, I now know, does not always bring joy.

   “You’re tearing me up inside / You’re tearing me up inside / It feels like something in me died / Feels like something in me died / All of the bright colors that live inside of me / Are now just tiny little pieces of what used to be / And it just feels like ... confetti,” she finishes.

   The last song on this phenomenal album, written so honestly and full of emotion, serves as a memorial for her mother who died when she was only 6.

   “She was 40 when she died and I don’t remember her at all. The song is about wishing you knew those simple little things about that person, what their voice sounds like, how they walk, what they look like driving a car,” she said about the song “Leaving this Life” on her Web site.

  “I am 6 years old in the back of my mother’s car / And I will be 7 in December / She will be gone by the beginning of next spring / And I will be left to remember,” she sings on the tear-jerking opening lines. “I don’t know what her skin feels like / I only know what it might feel like / When a mother holds her daughter / When that mother knows she’s leaving this life.”

  As the song continues, it only becomes even more heartbreaking.  McKenna’s unique and unmistakable voice intensifies the pain in this song as well as the charm in the rest of the album.

  All 11 tracks on this album are brilliantly written by McKenna and become a reminder of what country music should be.

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