Little Sue, The Long Goodbye (self-released, 2002)
The Long Goodbye is the third full-length CD by Portland, Oregon-based Susannah Weaver, who performs as Little Sue. In the same way that 1999's Crow was a cut above her 1997 debut Chimneys and Fishes, so The Long Goodbye shows even more signs of Weaver's growth as a songwriter and performer. With her high, clear and slightly twangy vocal style, strong lyrical abilities and pop-savvy production help from multi-talented Ezra Holbrook, it's no wonder Goodbye made more than one top-ten list among Northwest critics.
Sonically, this record combines the loopier aspects of late-60s Beatles with the heartfelt country-rock ethos of Gram Parsons-era Byrds. Steel guitar weeps over a palette of Penny Lane-inspired flutes, strings, organs and backwards-recorded percussion. It's a heady blend, and one that nobody else is doing right now, to my knowledge.
Most of the songs are built around simple acoustic guitar arrangements, giving them a basic country-folk foundation. And they're almost all slow to mid-tempo, so the use of various instruments and effects gives color to what might otherwise be a bit monochromatic. The coloration comes from a beautifully throaty viola, for instance, on the opening track "Country Song." A swooping and ululating theramin is used for quite different effects on two back-to-back songs, the chugging riff-rocker "Scary Places" and the wistful folk-rock of the title track. The latter also features tinkling bells and some otherworldly organ swashes. And the classy string quartet backing of "Somehow" is juxtaposed against the weepy pedal steel of "Dysfunctional Love Song."
In fact, the album could just as well have been titled "Dysfunctional Love Songs," as it's pretty much the theme. The Long Goodbye is a concept album or song cycle of regretful love songs, in fact. In the opening track, she laments that a "country song can't help me now," as a love affair falls apart; in "I Can Wait," she seems to be waiting for a love that may not come: "We're walking around like we've got something to prove/we throw it away like we've got nothing to lose." The scary places in the song of that title seem to involve being with someone she loves: "I like those sunny places until I'm by your side/then I let it down/then I let you down." Things have already fallen apart in "Years," as she sings "It's you, you I can't hold on to/and hold onto myself, too." It's not entirely bleak, though. The failure of love is leavened by "Blinded," a song of two friends blind-sided by love, in which Weaver has fun with a familiar metaphor. And she frolics with wordplay in the penultimate track, "Wing-nut," with lines that include "Every time I try to swim I'm sinking/every time I try to quit I'm drinking."
Throughout, Weaver impressively matches lyric to melody, and more often than not approaches her subject obliquely, so you have to pay attention to divine her meaning. Thus "Years," which starts out like perhaps another song of failed love, seems to be revealed by the end as a thankful prayer for enduring affection: "Beer and whiskey make the pain go/it comes back twice as fierce/it takes a lot of guts, man/to be a part of years..."
With a style all her own -- strong songwriting, a unique voice and a vision that marries country themes to pop smarts -- Little Sue deserves a place among the alt-country elite.
