On the 16th of March 2013, Jason Molina passed away aged just thirty nine. The outpouring of grief and sorrow upon his death was quite unbelievable, and in the eighteen months since, his loyal fanbase have penned some incredible tributes (such as this piece by Tom Johnson of Gold Flake Paint and this one by Max Blau for the Chicago Reader). I’m not going to write a tribute to the man himself, or even comment on his enduring legacy in contemporary music, mainly because that has already been done by people with a lot more authority on the subject than myself. But when I was asked to write a post about music that was not “new”, there was only really one choice.
So my plan is to write about some of my favourite of Molina’s songs in the hope of inspiring you to delve deeper into his back-catalogue yourself.
Firstly, a quick bit of background info. If you’re not already familiar with his work, you should know that Molina recorded under various guises, leading bands under the names Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co., and also recording solo records under his own name. He also released a really good album with Will Johnson (of Centro-matic) and also released a one off record under the moniker Amalgamated Sons of Rest with Will Oldham and Alasdair Roberts. The vast majority of his records were released by Secretly Canadian.
Unsurprisingly for a career which spanned over 15 years, Molina’s music morphed and modified, filling a variety of niches and casting the man himself in a variety of guises. There is the stark and haunting folk music of his earliest Songs: Ohia releases, the blood-and-thunder indie rock of later ones and even country-inflected classic rock on the later Magnolia Electric Co. albums. But every album also has something in common, something unique to the man himself. Much of his music deals with life as an outsider, the constant struggle with feelings of inadequacy and isolation. But there is also something else, a sliver of beautiful glittering hope in the darkness. This is illustrated by Molina’s refusal to simply give in, his determination to persevere, his emphasis on how important it is to “try”.
I’ve chosen a collection of my very favourite Jason Molina tracks. It is in no way intended to be definitive, and a second person could easily choose an entirely different set of songs. For example, ‘Hold on, Magnolia’, ‘Just Be Simple’ and ‘Don’t it Look Like Rain’ have not made it on the list, despite being songs that I love more than most. Anyways, here we go…
Honey, Watch Your Ass
My first choice is taken from Pyramid Electric Co., a solo album released in 2004. To me it displays some of the finest lyricism, not just in Molina’s vast discography, but in music in general. See for example:
“She nearly burned the town again
With the look that she gave him
She covers her heart
With her hands and says a little useless praying
Never hurt anything”
And, in what I think must be one of my favourite lines of all time:
“That must be her up there
Perfume and cigarette smoke in her wild hair
She smells a little like a train
Hauling lilacs through the rain”
Darling…
‘Darling…’ appeared on Hecla & Griper, an EP released by Songs: Ohia way back in 1997. It’s not actually a Molina song, rather a cover of country artist Conrad Twitty. The beauty for me is that there is not a shred of irony in this cover. It’s a raw and lonely-sounding break-up song, a desperate plea for reconciliation from a lost love:
“Hello darling, it’s nice to see you
It’s been a long time
How’s your new love are you happy
Hope you’re doing alright
Just to know this means so much to me
What’s that darling, how am I doing
Guess I’m doing alright except I can’t sleep
And I cry all night till dawn
What I’m trying to say is that I love you and
I miss you and I’m sorry that I done you wrong”
Hecla & Griper was reissued on its 15th anniversary (plus bonus tracks). Get it via Secretly Canadian.
Didn’t It Rain
Another Songs: Ohia track next, this time from the 2002 album of the same name (which has also recently been reissued as a deluxe package). ‘Didn’t It Rain’ is a heartfelt ode to both the hope and the hopelessness of existence. It opens with a consolation:
“No matter how dark the storm gets overhead
They say someone’s watching from the calm at the edge”
And continues as a kind of empathetic pep-talk.
“If they think you got it they’re going to beat it out of you
With work and debt whatever all else there is
You got to watch your own back
Try to see the light of goodness burning down the track
Through the blinding rain through the swaying wires”
This is Molina addressing things head-on, saying to his listeners, “yeah things are tough but here’s what we can do about it”. Emphasis on the “we”. There is solidarity here, a we’re-all-in-this-together call to arms to just keep going.
Whip-poor-will
This track didn’t appear on a proper album until a re-worked version was included on Magnolia Electric Co.’s 2009 album Josephine. But the version I am including on my list is a demo played by a lone Molina on his guitar (which you can hear on the bonus disc of the 10th anniversary edition of Magnolia Electric Co.). ‘Whip-poor-will’ is wonderfully simple and full of a certain sense of resolute melancholy. With lines such as:
“So all of you folks in heaven not too busy ringing the bell
Some of us down here ain’t doing very well”
And:
“Still waiting
For you to sing that song again
The one you were singing at the very fall of man
It ain’t hallelujah but it might as well have been”
O! Grace
‘O! Grace’, from Josephine, is the latest of my choices and is included mainly to illustrate the deviance in sound from the earlier Songs: Ohia albums. What we get here is almost a traditional country song, complete with a pseudo-sing-along chorus of:
“Oh Grace, if you stop believing
That don’t mean that it just goes away
It’s a long way between horizons
And it gets farther every day”
Farewell Transmission
This is the opening track on Magnolia Electric Co., the album which many regard as Molina’s magnum opus. ‘Farewell Transmission’ is a rock song of epic scope, in which Molina threw together all of his friends and creative energies in seven and a half minutes of pure searing force. It begins with a swagger, and immediately sounds bigger than anything Molina had made before. The real highlight is the lyrics, which are jam-packed with stark, forlorn imagery of dying moons and strange shamanistic rituals. With passages such as:
“After tonight if you don’t want us to be a secret out of the past
I will resurrect it, I’ll have a good go at it
I’ll streak his blood across my beak and dust my feathers with his ashes
I can feel his ghost breathing down my back”
And:
“Mama here comes midnight, with the dead moon in its jaws
Must be the big star about to fall”
The song also contains some lines which relate back to Molina’s favourite lyrical themes, and turns out to be one place where he expresses himself particularly eloquently:
“The real truth about it is no one gets it right
The real truth about it is we’re all supposed to try”
It is lines like this which created the adoring fandom, which turned people from casual listeners to zealous followers (including Strand of Oaks’s Timothy Showalter). And the reason? Because they offer comfort. Here is a man who spent his artistic career documenting his life’s struggles, beaming out his thoughts to thousands of lonely people around the country. And his message (in these two short lines at least) was a powerful one. He’s saying that we should all just keep going, that we are all doing okay.
Long Desert Train
To conclude I have chosen what is perhaps my favourite Jason Molina song of all. ‘Long Desert Train’ is another solo track, the shattering terminus of Pyramid Electric Co.. This is a very, very sad song, even for a man who made a living writing sad songs. It looks the sensation of inadequacy and a complete lack of self-worth straight in the eye. It feels like an outpouring of vulnerability, a rare faultering in the noble intentions of resilience and perseverance. It is a sad song with sadder end, and one which has added poignancy after Molina’s premature demise:
“Said you’d never be old enough
Or young enough
Tall enough
Or thin enough
Or smart enough
Or brave enough
Rich enough
Pretty enough
Strong enough
Good enough
Well you were to us
You wanted silence by itself
Just the word
You wanted peace by itself
Just to learn
There were things you couldn’t change
You got the dull pounding rain
You got the last car in the long desert train
You almost made it”
You can buy the vast majority of Jason Molina’s music via Secretly Canadian.
P.S. The last year or so has seen various Jason Molina tribute albums, including Farwell Transmission: A Tribute To Jason Molina from Rock The Cause and a collection of tributes and compilations from The Wave Pictures.