Faraway Hills · @farawayhills
2nd Jan 2013 from Twitlonger
@1NatalieMaines new song Mother, available here http://t.co/o32kAdLu. My impression is here if friends are interested
I think Natalie's made an interesting and rewarding re-interpretation of this difficult and emotionally embittered lyric. I agree with the NPR reviewer that she's taken it to a more thoughtful, more complex and more generally applicable level.
It seems clear, both from the context of the original 1979 Pink Floyd album, and from songwriter Roger Waters' reported comments that the song was largely conceived as a literal portrayal of an over-protective mother's stifling effect on a young man's development. Sung by a man, it could indeed come across as misogynistic and overly self-justifying. This, though, is a song that contains the potential for more breadth, and a female singer's scope for fresh insight is welcome. Like the NPR reviewer, I find Natalie's interpretation more interesting and more layered.
As a diehard Country Music fan, one aspect of this song that particularly interests me is the potential in it to see an allegory for the way governments and social conformists often try to define and control the development of art and debate, and how the Mainstream industry itself often plays along with an overly cautious acceptance of those limitations. While the Alternative sector has long opted out of that situation, and Natalie herself may feel she's left that scene behind - the possibility of such an interpretation may strike a chord with some of the Mainstream artists who now walk the tightrope that she once did.
Natalie's voice here struck me as a little deeper and more measured than in her Dixie Chick Mainstream days, but that suits the austere and darker tone of this lyric. The music provides an insistent, but relatively restrained, beat, varied by some hauntingly beautiful soaring notes. This performance provides, for my ears, enough vocal and musical twang to keep faith with the DC legacy, and, while other fans may disagree, I find the more Alternative feel of the production suits Natalie rather more than the style of parts of "Taking the Long Way", where I sometimes felt she needed an effort to rise above her rhythm section. Of the two new song choices that I've heard so far, my vote would still go to the Ben Harper original, "Vein in Vain", but this is a strong performance which leaves me keen to sample the rest of her forthcoming album.