6A — Monday, January 14, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Country 
has 
a 
distinct 
sensibility, 
one 
capable 
of 
evoking 
specific 
landscapes 
and brands of sorrow, joy and 
attraction. In After All, Rob 
Baird directs this sensibility 
toward the emotional journey of 
a breakup. He follows the classic 
trajectory 
of 
other 
breakup 
albums of this ilk, tracing the 
stages from denial to despair to 
anger and betrayal to eventual 
resolve and acceptance. It’s 
a familiar path, so it’s saying 
something for Baird that After 
All 
still 
sounds 
completely 
fresh, 
original 
and 
genuinely 
heartfelt.
A 
notable 
component 
of 
the 
album’s 
effectiveness 
is 
Baird’s skill as a 
lyricist, which is 
evident from the 
very 
beginning 
of 
the 
album. 
On the opening 
title track, Baird 
sings about the 
feeling 
that 
a 
relationship 
isn’t 
going 
to 
work 
out. 
He 
illustrates 
a 
sense 
of 
directionlessness 
and waning hope 
with lines about 
“All these long 
nights, all these 
street lights / [Bleeding] into the 
fog.” This sure-handed poeticism 
keeps up throughout the album, 
from contemplative songs like 
“I Tried” (“Everywhere I go it’s 
pouring rain / Shouldn’t have to 

hold on to try to stay sane”) to 
despairing tracks like “Burning 
Blue” (“Like the desert rain / 
Sunday silence / And the choices 
I’ve made”) and the eventual 
resolution of “Best That I Was” 
(“Silver lake skies / Make no 
reason why”).
After All brims 
with 
unbridled 
emotion, from the 
guitar-riddled, 
electric 
street-
lamp alertness of 
“Losing 
Hands” 
and “Ain’t Going 
Back to You” to the 
hurt mingled with 
resignation in “Devil Woman 
Blues.” Each song feels like its 
own pocket of a 
story, totaling a 
whole that looks 
like 
a 
dream-
fueled road trip 
around America. 
The 
effect 
of 
the songs is that 
of driving past 
familiar scenery 
and feeling like 
something about 
your relationship 
with it is shifting 
before your eyes. 
This 
changing 
vision 
is 
the 
crux of After All, 
exemplified 
in 
songs like “Give 
Me 
Back 
My 
Love,” 
which 
lands somewhere 
between a plea 
from the former 
lover 
and 
a 
desperate longing for a sense 
of love in general. When Baird 
sings, “Gonna pick me up some 
silver lining / Gonna turn these 
nickels into dimes,” and later, 
“Give me back my love,” one can’t 

help but relate to the notion of 
love itself as one’s own happiness 
and 
contentedness, 
whatever 
this might demand from another 
person.
A large part of what makes 
After All a skillful album is the 
way 
in 
which 
Baird 
uses 
raw 
emotion 
as 
a 
starting 
point, 
rather 
than 
imagery or classic 
lyrical traditions. 
Country 
music 
— which, when 
measured by its 
masters, is truly 
a vast collection of variety, 
creativity and heart — is so often 
superficially pigeonholed as a 
genre defined by dusty roads, 
dimly lit bars and pickup trucks. 
Specific images and phrases, 
in other words, that are all too 
easy to toss into a song under the 
thinly veiled guise of thoughtful 
songwriting.
But there is very little of this 
affectation in After All, as Baird 
sets himself apart from some of 
these pitfalls using a masterful 
command of poetic devices as 
he himself defines them. He still 
orients his stories — because, 
again, that is what each of the 
songs on After All is, a unified, 
emotional little story within 
itself — around traveling open 
roads and wandering empty 
streets. One gets the sense that 
this journey for which he has 
invited us along is only one of 
many he’ll take, each of which 
has its own kind of wisdom to 
impart. Amid these familiar 
landscapes, Baird writes from his 
experiences first, unconcerned 
with figures outside of the unique 
relationship he is personally 
navigating, 
wandering 
those 
empty streets as only he can.

‘After All’ is a thoughtful 
exploration of a breakup

LAURA DZUBAY
Daily Arts Writer

MUSIC REVIEW

HARD LUCK RECORDING COMPANY

‘After All’

Rob Baird

Hard Luck 
Recording 
Company

 Baird sets 
himself apart 
from some of 
these pitfalls 
using a masterful 
command of 
poetic devices 
as he himself 
defines them. 

Everywhere I have lived 
in my life, people have told 
me their state’s weather is 
uniquely unpredictable. As a 
result, I have come to think that 
weather is weird in general, and 
this principle doesn’t vary too 
much from state to state. But 
as a senior, I have now spent 
nearly four years in Ann Arbor, 
meaning 
four 
consecutive 
winters, which is the longest 
amount of consecutive winters 
I’ve really spent somewhere 
(excluding smaller visits) since 
I was very young. And of those 
four, this has to be honestly the 
strangest one yet.
When 
I 
make 
poetry 
playlists, I often try to make 
them seasonal and relatable. 
I’ve done a Halloween one, a 
Valentine’s Day one, one for the 
end of the semester. I thought 
about doing something along 
those lines for this, the first 
poetry playlist of this winter 
semester, but the weather has 
been so strange lately that it’s 
been hard to land on a unified 
theme. It was unseasonably 
warm for unseasonably long, 
and now it’s cold again. It’s 
January, and yet it feels and 
looks like late fall (or early 
spring?). If I share a bunch of 
poems focused on the cold, 
I’m almost sure it will become 
warm again instantly, and vice 

versa.
In a way, maybe this is 
appropriate. It’s a new year — 
2019! A new year is a time for 
changes, even really sudden 
ones or ones that we don’t 
immediately understand. As 
a result, I’ve decided to share 
three of my favorite poems 
that celebrate nature in all its 
seasons, and most of all that 
celebrate 
change. 
Seasonal 
changes 
are 
my 
favorite 
kind because they’re quiet, 
unsuspected and unassuming, 
very reliable (whatever we say 
about them) and often beautiful. 
This might sound cheesy, but 
it’s my final semester here, so 
I’m allowing myself to lean 
into the sentiment. Here’s to a 
new year; may we all be in the 
mindset to welcome whatever 
strangeness it brings.

“Two Seasons” by Galway 
Kinnell

Expertly straddling the line 
between fond reflection and 
self-aware, wistful presence, 
“Two Seasons” demonstrates 
Galway Kinnell’s talent for 
precision 
in 
language. 
His 
choices of words are not only 
meticulous, but also sonorous, 
with lines like “As on the low 
lake shore stood you and I” and 
“Saying you felt afraid but that 
you were / Weary of being mute 
and undefiled” contributing to 
a seamless overall portrait of 
love and mutual appreciation.

“Love’s Seasons” by Paul 
Laurence Dunbar

Paul Laurence Dunbar is a 
master of rendering the natural 
world through language, and in 
“Love’s Seasons,” he maneuvers 
through the seasons of the year 
with an interesting choice of 
order (spring, winter, summer 
and then fall), devoting a 
stanza to each. The enduring 
sentiment of the poem is one 
of sure serenity in the face of 
change, as contentedness at its 
core is deep and true in every 
season.

“Changing Of The Seasons” 
by Shel Silverstein

“Changing Of The Seasons” 
is 
peculiar 
among 
these 
selections in that it is actually 
a song. I’m including it here 
nonetheless because it is still a 
poem and beautifully written, 
and because few people can dig 
straight to the heart of a feeling, 
especially a specific feeling, like 
serenity in the face of seasonal 
change, in quite the same way 
as Shel Silverstein. Between a 
few repetitions of the line, “It’s 
blowin’ in Chicago,” Silverstein 
remarks upon the peace that 
this natural phenomenon can 
bring: “There’s some men need 
the winter and there’s some 
men need the sun / And there’s 
some men need the changing of 
the seasons.”

A playlist for every in 
between, finicky season

DAILY LITERATURE COLUMN

LAURA DZUBAY
Daily Literature Columnist

To be from the upper Midwest 
is to be in a kind of bemused 
purgatory. Everything you say 
sounds like a question. People 
wonder if you’re Canadian, unless 
of course you’re also from up 
north, because then you know 
how 
real 
Canadians 
sound. 
Boredom is a state of mind you’ve 
never left.
“That ’70s Show” is one of 
the 
best 
representations 
of 
Midwestern life ever aired on 
primetime television. Even the 
title operates a joke wherein, like 
the Midwest, it is not specific 
enough to convey something 
of significance, capturing the 
dismissive mirth that peppers 
our sense of humor. And out of its 
eight seasons, no episode captures 
our region’s sentiments, legends 
and troubled relationship with 
our northern neighbor as well 
as the 23rd episode of the third 
season, “Canadian Road Trip.”
Firstly, a brief apology to all 
Canadians — the Midwest only 
jests. Contrary to the numerous 
jokes made at your expense, we 
find you Canadians quaint and 
charming. We are sorry though, 
and we want you to know that if 

we were not already the laughing 
stock of the continental United 
States, we would probably go 
much easier on you. We simply 
adore you — your beavers, your 
maple syrup, your Inukshuks and 
Tim Hortons. We wouldn’t have 
you any other way, Canada. But I 
digress.
In 
the 
infamous 
episode, 
Eric 
(Topher 
Grace, 
“BlacKkKlansman”) 
and 
the 
rest of his gaggle of guys head 
to Canada for beer. A seemingly 
simple task until Fez (Wilmer 
Valderrama, “NCIS”), a foreign 
exchange student, misplaces his 
green card. The guys attempt 
to smuggle him back across the 
border, to no avail. Before they 
know it, they have been turned 
over to the Mounties.
As an upper Midwesterner, a 
trip to Canada is commonplace. 
I’ve crossed the St. Clair and 
Detroit, I’ve seen the hinterlands, 
yet everytime I’m faced with the 
same nasally clipped question: 
“What’s your business in Canada, 
eh?” Each of my experiences at 
the border have mirrored the 
experiences of Eric Forman and 
his friends — Mounties, drunk 
with power and holding baseless 
suspicions against Americans, 
making 
even 
the 
simplest 
checkpoint a production.

In fact the episode would 
be 
incomplete 
without 
the 
Mounties, who just as sternly in 
their encounters with me, grill 
Eric, Michael and Hyde on their 
attempt to smuggle Fez back into 
America. The entire exchange 
the guys have with the Mountie 
is accurate, the boys treating him 
as indifferently as someone your 
age attempting to assert an elder’s 
dominance over you.
It’s the dumb tension of the 
Canadian border — in turn 
for our uniquely Midwestern 
impertinence towards everything 
Canadian, the Canadians only 
double down on their protections 
of their country. It is the perfect 
recreation of this tension that 
makes the episode so enjoyable to 
watch time and time again.
Which brings attention to why 
these young rapscallions were in 
Canada to begin with. It can be 
summarized in the three profound 
words shouted by Michael Kelso 
(Ashton Kutcher, “The Ranch”): 
“Wooh! Canada! Beer!” If you are 
from the upper Midwest, since 
turning 19 you have likely been 
on at least one trip to Canada with 
the explicit purpose of attaining 
Canadian beer. 

‘That ’70s Show’ and the 
experience of the Midwest

MAXWELL SCHWARZ
For The Daily

TV NOTEBOOK

FOX

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MichiganDaily.com

