Caitlin Rose
The Burned Girl With A Buzz And Tricks Up Her Sleeves
May 27, 2010
Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Sound engineering by Brett Allen
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Welcome to Daytrotter
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Spare Me
original version appears on unreleased; original version will appear on the forthcoming Own Side Now
This song's my favorite cut off the new record and, coincidentally, the only one without background vocals. It was so new that I didn't have words for that bit after the solo. Every time we played it live I'd just end up guessing. One time I actually sang, "Leave my hat out of this," (which I like better than this particular attempt), but we played it a few weeks later and it went: "I don't want no part in this. Leave my heart out of this" so I wrote that down.
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Own Side
original version appears on unreleased; original version will appear on the forthcoming Own Side Now
"Own Side" and "Spare Me" are sister songs. I wrote them at the same time and they're a lot like me and my sister. One's kind of a drama queen and one just wants to be Bob Dylan. My sister's an actress so you can probably guess. What's funny is how all the new songs are about the same person, but they've all got a different opinion; a classic case of 'conflicted muse'.
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Learning To Ride
original version appears on unreleased; original version will appear on the forthcoming Own Side Now
I wrote this a couple years ago, but the third verse came to be just a day before the session. It was always too short and I was meeting a whole mess of Geminis around the time (and my mom just married one), so it seemed appropriate (which it's probably not).
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Answer In One Of These …
original version appears on Dead Flowers
I forget this mid-song more than anything I play. Could be that I'm always drunk when I feel like playing it (you'd have to be) or because I wrote it when I was 19. Once, somebody asked me if it was a Merle Haggard song and inflated my ego so bad I started wearing my dad's old cowboy hat and walked around town feeling like a badass for months.
Caitlin Rose is a pistol. I believe that's the phrase for what and who she is. She's feisty and she's opinionated. She gives her best friends shit, constantly. She seems happy. She seems agitated. She smokes like a chimney. She enjoys drinking as much as the dudes and she's got more bona fide songwriting and singing talent in that tiny, chuckling body of hers than anyone you're liable to hear in the next twenty years, maybe longer. For hers is a god-given gift of music and words, so simply formulated that it does you almost no good to try and figure it out. It's there and there's no denying it. She's just got it and music journalists in the United Kingdom have already been raving about her, with Uncut magazine giving her debut EP a rave review and big-time promoters just recently tabbed for spots playing at Bonnaroo and Austin City Limits. Rose, whose mother is part of Nashville's Music Row royalty, having helped pen nearly all of Taylor Swift's recent work, has that old-timey country and western twang meandering through her veins, giving all of her songs the proper heart-on-the-sleeve, at-the-bar-again-tonight-what-did-you-expect treatment. It all comes from an aching place, though there's plenty of pride and plenty of that stiff upper lip that you'd expect from such a fireball like this one. She can most certainly stand up for herself, even if what's wanted is to throw on a sundress and some boots and grab a cold beer or warm whiskey drink. It's somewhat woe is me material, but not in a way that's asking for anyone to take pity on the poor girl, just an expression of the feeling that's meant to be empathized - and can be empathized by way too many. She's been thrown into love's way countless times already - at 22 years old - and the results have not been pretty, so it sounds. We're hearing about boys who just can't appreciate what they've got right in front of them. Oddly, this is the multi-million-dollar theme to almost every Swift song and yet the two young women couldn't be any more different than they are. Rose sings from the position of the girl burned, but the girl burned, in this case, isn't going to go her bedroom for a breakdown with her diary and a sloppily played guitar - finding therapy in the very action of taking a pick to strings. There will be no congratulatory hugs or pats on the back for just writing a song about the high school heartthrob who squashed a beautiful flower to get with an easy lay, or whatever the case may be. There is no consolation prize for being willing to just toss it out there as easy poetry. The girl burned in Caitlin Rose songs is more appropriately and interestingly going to find ways to remain cute, but also be as lethal and sharp as can be. It's an exercise in appearing to be cuddly and harmless, but having the bones and soul of an assassin, able to strike when least expected and without the mess. For characters looking for shelter, for hiding places in the midst of storminess, for something that they believe to be love, there's a desire to have no part of the sticky business. As Rose sings in an alternate version of new song "Spare Me," "I don't want no part in this/Leave my heart out of this," after beseeching one to, "So spare me your love today." There's a love learning curve that has all kinds of chips and bends to it, and Rose knows that this won't be cracked anytime soon, singing on "Learning To Ride," "I'll get knocked down when I'm learning to ride/A few broken bones for a place to hide/I get knocked down when I'm learning to ride." It's alright though, because hearing her sing about extracting the pieces of gravel from her skinned knees is an enchanting pastime.
Caitlin Rose Official Site
