Jack Barksdale Battleground
There are no love songs on Jack Barksdale’s new five-song EP, Battleground. No tales of growing up, of relationships gone wrong, or nostalgic recollections of better days. Instead, Barksdale gives us five political songs, in the broadest sense of the word.
On the title track, we meet a woman caught in the war between rich and poor. She steals from the wealthy, who have been stealing from her all along, only they’ve done it with the help of laws they paid for. It’s hard not to think of Woody Guthrie’s “Pretty Boy Floyd” and his observation that some men rob you with a six-gun and others with a fountain pen.
Barksdale’s vocal is particularly effective here. It’s hard to be both quiet and forceful, but he manages it. Canadian singer-songwriter Julian Taylor joins him on the song, and their voices work beautifully together.
“The Scam Song” is the most fun I’ve had listening to a song about corporate bailouts. Barksdale begins with the familiar Nigerian prince email scam, then introduces a corporation looking for a government bailout. The requests are basically the same, but we’re supposed to recognize one as a scam and take the other seriously.
Musically, the song could almost be from a Tom Chapin children’s album. There’s a playful melody, and a little calliope-like flourish at the opening that sets the tone.
There’s nothing playful about “God Is Good.” Barksdale, like many before him, asks how a good God could allow so much suffering, pointing to Gaza and Sudan as contemporary examples. With each repetition of “God is good,” the refrain becomes less reassuring. And when he finally tells us that God may be good, but we’re all alone, it’s just devastating.
I don’t quite know what to make of “Don’t Have Children, Adopt!” The argument is clear: why bring more children into a world filled with suffering when so many children already need homes? But the song feels more like an argument than a piece of music. It’s the one track on Battleground that doesn’t work for me.
The EP closes with “Ticket Home (For Phil Ochs),” another standout. Delicate guitar picking supports an almost whispered vocal as Barksdale recounts the life of one of folk music’s most important protest singers.
Although addressed to Ochs, the song is for the rest of us. Barksdale captures a man who believed songs could change the world, only to confront disappointment and disillusionment. It’s a moving performance, one that grows more compelling with repeated listening. This isn’t a grand tribute (for that, see, among others, Todd Snider’s brilliant “Thin Wild Mercury”). Here, Barksdale quietly tells the story and lets it speak for itself.
Produced by Mark Edgar Stuart and recorded at Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis, Battleground sounds great, with the instrumentation supporting Barksdale’s vocals rather than competing with them.
On Battleground, Jack Barksdale shows us that the great tradition of American protest music is alive and well, and that he’s ready to carry it forward.
It’s fitting, then, that Battleground ends with a song about Phil Ochs. Barksdale knows whose footsteps he’s following, and he knows the path isn’t always an easy one. But he’s chosen to walk it anyway.
Find more details here on his website: http://www.jackbarksdale.com
Enjoy some of our previous coverage here: Show Review: Abe Partridge and Jack Barksdale at Ram’s Head in Annapolis
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Mark Pelavin, a failed retiree, is a writer, consultant and music critic in St. Michaels, MD. His newsletter, A Feather in the Wind, is at https://markpelavin.substack.com/.