Subtle Metaphors and Short Movies
3 LEFTS
By Paddy Mills
CD review by Bob McKillop
Paddy Mills wants to perform a private concert in your car.
Or in your living room, your cubicle at work, your kitchen while you make dinner, or where ever it is that you listen to music.
Paddy’s new CD is called 3 LEFTS, and it’s full of intimate, heartfelt, finely crafted, and masterfully performed songs. These tracks are recorded in a way that will set him right in front of you, singing and picking his guitar, as if you were the only one in the room.
The only instruments on this record are Paddy’s guitar and his rich, dynamic, full-spectrum vocals. His voice is confident and versatile; he doesn’t push his range, but he makes full use of it. He sings his lyrics in the same way that he plays his guitar; with a deep knowledge of his song and what he’s trying to convey, and an understanding of the instrumental techniques that he needs to use in order to get the message across.
The best songs on “3 LEFTS” prove how much Paddy has grown as a songwriter (and as a guitarist!) in the years since his 2006 release “Our Home Town”. He’s still telling great stories, but he has gotten much better at projecting those stories as short movies onto the inside of our forehead for us to watch with our minds eye. He has learned to master the subtle metaphors that separate the merely pleasant songs from those that we really enjoy listening to and that we remember.
“Apply Some Heat” is a great example. The lyrics describe a happy domestic scene of collaborative cooking, but the song is about enjoying life. The folky-blues tinged alternating bass picking pattern finds its way quickly into your big toe, and works its way up your leg until your whole body is nodding and tapping. It is two and a half minutes of pure joi de vivre. He uses simple, direct lyrics, and every syllable has a job to do in this song. Words come off his tongue and ride the melody in exactly the manner that we would expect someone to say them. Music and cooking are important ways in which Paddy finds enjoyment in this world, and the personal connection gives this song a distinctive authenticity.
“We just chop some garlic, potatoes and leeks
Knife on the cuttin’ board, keeping the beat
Put it in a pan, apply some heat and
We’ll dance around the kitchen, kick up our feet.”
It’s not all happiness and light in Paddy’s world, though, as evidenced in the title track, “3 LEFTS”. Paddy takes the well-worn story line of the tension between a couple in a car after the guy has gotten them lost, and brings it to vivid life. I could feel the heat coming from the passenger seat in this car, and I developed a sympathetic knot in my stomach as the situation went further and further south. His percussive boom-chick guitar groove and knocks on the soundboard, and the bluesy melody bring a dark mood into the song.
“I grind my teeth and shift a gear
You keep saying we can’t get there from here
Although it don’t seem like it’s all that far
There’s a million miles between the seats in this car
Took a wrong turn earlier tonight
Don’t you know three lefts can make a right”
Paddy does Jimmy Buffet one better on “Another Day, Another Sand Dollar”. This is what “Margaritaville” could have been if Buffet had found the real song in this idea. Paddy uses much better imagery and has more fun with the dissolution of the character. Plus, the line “the way life should be” sets it securely in Maine, which appeals to me personally. Check out the bridge:
“I could call her up and ask to come back home
if I hadn’t lost my cell phone when I skipped it like a stone”
Great song.
Another song on this disc that bears special mention is “Bay View Massacre”. It’s written in the classic labor movement form, with a crystal clear story and vivid characterizations. Paddy’s guitar work is stellar, and his vocals carry emotion and rage and pain. The song’s hook sums it all up perfectly: “Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for what we will.” The story is an important one in these days when the right to bargain collectively is being challenged all over the country.
Jud Caswell recorded, engineered, and mastered this record for Paddy in his Frog Hollow studios in Brunswick, Maine. Jud and Paddy jointly produced the disc. Jud deserves a huge amount of credit for how much you will enjoy these tracks. He brings Paddy, his performance, and his songwriting to us in an incredibly life-like way. Paddy’s vocals are front and center, but you can hear them swirl subtly left and right, as if Paddy were turning his head and using expert microphone technique in a live performance. The guitar’s bass string are generally on the left, treble strings on the right, and the instrument is slightly in the background. The effect is stunning; it feels Paddy is sitting right in front of you, performing a private concert. Nice work Jud.
Paddy told me that this CD is all about the songwriting. I agree (although his performance is really great.) I think that these are some of the best songs that I’ve heard from a Maine songwriter in a long time. Paddy credits Jud and the participants in Jud’s monthly songwriting circle in Brunswick for helping make them more refined. I know how helpful it is to get feedback from other songwriters. All the same, he is to be congratulated on the great body of work that he has put down on this CD.
Paddy’s webpage is at www.paddymills.com - you can purchase this CD through his website, on CDBaby, and on iTunes. This is an important release from one of the hardest-working Maine singer/songwriters that I know. I strongly recommend that you get yourself a copy before there are only “3 Left”. Sorry, couldn’t resist that.
Bob Mckillop - MaineFolkMusic.com (May 17, 2011)