The one thing that hamstrings me for this album is that I kind of have to be in the right mood for 60s/70s Nashville sound country pop to listen to her properly. On any given day I am still too green to all this to connect with her in the same way I can a thrash or doom metal album on any given day, and unfortunately now is not that day.
But on that day when all is good, Patsy Cline entrances me. I remember a Plug session talking to Chio about this very subject and talking about how a story I'd heard about a childhood illness that altered Patsy's vocal chords to give her the voice she became known for. There's just something about the way she sings that legitimately gives me the heeby jeebies at times, and that story makes me think that there's an uncanny valley aspect to her singing, where a human voice simply isn't meant to sing like that and it ****s with me. In an amazing way.
It's not an obvious thing, cause for the most part she doesn't "sang", she croons in a very polite way that doesn't challenge one's perception of the human voice in the way that Diamanda Galas does, but I can think of no other singer in Patsy's time period or genre who croons in such a powerful and subtlely alien way. She's simply unique in a way that is very easy to overlook.
But if it were just technique that she had to offer, I imagine I wouldn't care nearly as much. Her ultimate ace in the hole is her ability to emote. "Crazy" is her obvious song that everyone on Earth has heard, and it's easy to ignore her performance as it is 60s schmaltz to the Nth degree, but there's an intensity to the song that makes it feel like she's on the verge of an emotional breakdown and barely keeping her emotions in check, even if the subject matter is nothing more than jukebox fare. There's simply a beauty to Patsy Cline's singing style that is easily lost in the decades since her death.
If there's one major flaw to her and this album, it's that she never really had the time that so many other artists did to evolve their style and find songwriters to truly plumb their depths (she died within 6 years of her debut, and 2 years of her big break). If Patsy Cline had ever found songwriters and/or lyricists to truly express her vocal, emotional depths, then I believe she could have put out consistent, cohesive albums to challenge even such as Townes Van Zandt or Willie Nelson. As it is she still put out some of the most addictive country songs of all-time.
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Originally Posted by J.R.R. Tolkien
There is only one bright spot and that is the growing habit of disgruntled men of dynamiting factories and power-stations; I hope that, encouraged now as ‘patriotism’, may remain a habit! But it won’t do any good, if it is not universal.
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