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Rules of Travel
Rosanne Cash
(Capitol)
When Trisha Yearwood approached Rosanne Cash about covering one of her songs, Cash immediately offered up "Last Stop Before Home" off her new album.
Yearwood instead opted to re-record Cash's '80's hit "Seven Year Ache."
Most of Cash's fans would side with Yearwood on this one, but that doesn't faze Cash who is no longer the brash young rocker who wrote that country anthem more than 20 years ago.
For proof, look no further than "Rules of Travel," her 11th album and first studio effort in a decade.
None of the tracks will likely enjoy the success of "Seven Year Ache" or any of Cash's 10 other No. 1 singles, but then that's not why she wrote them in the first place.
Approaching 50 and a mother of four, Cash has outgrown the young lovers' angst of her early work and has come to grips more with her place in the world. Musically "Rules of Travel" continues a process for Cash that began with 1991's "Interiors," of reaching beyond the narrow borders of country to embrace a sound that is as diverse as the artist herself.
Cash confesses her songwriting is more "outward looking" and more "generous emotionally." There is still the same tortured quality to her writing, but her anger has been replaced with a desire to get beyond life's emotional landmines.
"I think the songs are looking out towards the world more now than they used to be and that's a good feeling for me to be more interested in what's going on outside my own head," says Cash, who wrote or co-wrote all but two of the 11 songs on "Rules of Travel."
It's winding, celtic feel is better accompanied by a cup of tea at home, instead of a beer in a honky tonk, but while "Rules of Travel" lacks the wallop of "Seven Year Ache," it still possesses some real gems.
"September When It Comes" is an eerily beautiful piece that focuses on Cash's formerly troubled relationship with her famous father and his failing health. It marks the first time the two have recorded a song together and feels especially poignant given Johnny Cash's latest hospitalization.
"Emotionally it was a big event for me, because I've waited so long to do this," admits Cash, who just returned to New York after spending a week with her father in a Nashville intensive-care unit. "I'm so glad I waited for this song, because it was really the right song and the right time. He's in rather frail health and so for him to do that, or any song, was moving but this one in particular. It was a very sweet experience."
In the duet Cash sings: "There's a cross above the baby's bed/A saviour in her dreams/But she was not delivered then and the baby became me/There's a light inside the darkened room, a footstep on the stairs/A door that I forever close to leave those memories there."
"It refers to the pain of childhood," confesses Cash. "We've all got our own version and to keep rehashing it in every myriad way you can in your adult life and to keep acting out of it is ultimately self-defeating."
These days Cash is all for resolutions over conflict, including the current war in Iraq and her songs reflect that. "Western Wall," previously released on 1996's "10 Song Demo," uses the real-life Wailing Wall in Israel as its subject matter to express the need for a more tolerant and compassionate world.
"Any songs that deal with mortality or with compassion across party lines or across cultures become heightened in meaning for me," explains Cash about the song's new currency. "It seems ludicrous to be talking about a record with this going on in the world."
Other notable numbers are "I'll Change For You," a duet with Steve Earle and "44 Stories," which Cash wrote when she was 44 and is the same title of an autobiography she is working on that covers what she considers the first part of her career, from 1979-90. Cash is especially fond of the line: "Next time you see her on her knees, don't try to make a deal." The song is about how each year of your life has its own unique story and the greatest feeling is to share them all with a loved one.
Ironically the most autobiographical song on the album - "Beautiful Pain" - wasn't even written by Cash, but rather by Canadian songwriter Craig Northey, formerly of The Odds. The song appropriately opens "Rules of Travel" with the line: "Do you want to be honest?/Do you want to win?" Sheryl Crow sings backup on the achingly poppy tune that is about being caught up in the destructive emotions of relationships and needing to let go of the pain.
"I thought The Odds was just a fantastic band, I loved them," says Cash. "I'm a huge Crowded House fan and there's something about The Odds and about Craig's writing in particular that reminded me of Neil Finn. So when we were starting to get together the songs for the record (husband/producer) John (Leventhal) said, 'God I'd love to ask Craig Northey to write a song for you' and he sent us "Beautiful Pain" within two weeks. When I heard it I was almost embarrassed: I thought how does this guy know me so well."
The process of writing "Rules of Travel" began when Cash was pregnant with her son Jake in 1998 and was shelved for nearly two and a half years when the singer developed a polyp in her throat that reduced her vibrant voice to a frustrating rasp.
Her voice returned at the end of 2000 and she and Leventhal began the process of finishing the album in the spring of 2001.
"I still work with a vocal therapist, but it's back," says Cash, who retrained her voice by singing arias. "I feel this is the best record I've ever made. I feel my voice is in the best shape it's been in and for the first time I'm really enjoying that."
Cash is also enjoying her recent inclusion on CMT's list of the "40 Greatest Women of Country Music," where she was listed at No. 22 just behind friend Mary Chapin-Carpenter.
"I thought it was a very fair ranking - me and Chapin right there together," says Cash, who moved to New York in 1991 to escape the small-mindedness of Nashville. "I was actually very, very flattered, because I had kind of resigned myself to the fact that the country music community was not going to acknowledge what I had done: I had had 11 No. 1 singles; that I had kind of broken a lot of barriers for women and particularly women songwriters.
"I was just going on with my life and I certainly wasn't bitter about it, but it was a source of some regret. So when they put me on the list I mean I cried. I was really touched by it."
The inclusion is somewhat ironic since Cash has never strictly thought of herself as a "country" artist.
"I never did partly out of respect for the genre, because I grew up listening to real country singers, who my mother played around the house like Patsy Cline. I knew Loretta Lynn and what those voices were and what their origins were. I wouldn't have presumed to say 'Oh that's what I am.' I grew up in Southern California where my heaviest influence was The Beatles, so how could I claim that? So I was kind of surprised when the Nashville division signed me, but I was game. I didn't really care about the arena, I just was interested in writing songs and exploring the turf."
The fodder for Cash's next album will undoubtedly be turning 50, but don't expect the material to be angst-ridden.
"I feel great," says the soon-to-be 48-year-old. "I love my life. I love my job. I love my husband and my kids. I love my home. I can't really complain about my age. When all that is so good it would be kind of unseemly to complain about how old I am.
"You look at yourself 20 years ago and think wow that kid had so much to learn. I wish I could go back and tell her a few things. It's hard to think that I made mistakes in public that causes me anxiety, but at the same time I was trying to live an honest life. I made my mistakes honestly. I worked out a lot of the fears I used to have about success, about my job, about being a singer... I don't feel ambivalent about it anymore." (More on Rosanne Cash)
Track Listing
1. Beautiful Pain - (featuring Sheryl Crow)
2. 44 Stories
3. I'll Change For You - (featuring Steve Earle)
4. Rules Of Travel
5. September When It Comes - (featuring Johnny Cash)
6. Hope Against Hope
7. Will You Remember Me?
8. Three Steps Down - (featuring Teddy Thompson)
9. Closer Than I Appear
10. Western Wall
11. Last Stop Before Home