God may not have made honky-tonk angels, but He sure as h-e-double hockey sticks sprinkled some honky-tonk magic into the 12 tracks that make up Emily Nenni’s third album, Drive & Cry. To put it another way: There’s something she wanted to tell us so she wrote it in the words of 11 of these songs—and composed the music for them, too. (Only Terry Allen’s classic “Amarillo Highway,” which closes the album, comes from another’s pen.) In short, it’s the classic country & western sound of yesteryear reframed for the present, with the gradients of Nenni’s expressive vocals adding color and texture throughout.
It opens with the drivin’ “Get to Know Ya,” about heading out for some fun after the workday’s done. As with the songs that follow, there’s more going on than a rocking and rollicking good time. Humor, humanity and escape from her troubled mind come into play, as does encouraging people to be polite.
“Greatest Hits” continues in the same vein, albeit at a slower tempo, with Nenni singing of how hard times just keep coming but recognizing that good occasionally slips in, too. “Lay of the Land,” for its part, is a travelogue that conjures the tumbling tumbleweeds of long-ago trail songs. Here’s an acoustic rendition from an RFD-TV appearance:
“I Don’t Have to Like You” spurns unwanted attention with aplomb and politeness, while the title track pumps the gas just a bit while celebrating the lonesome tunes she blubbers to when behind the wheel. “Changes” steps from the car to the curb and then bar while recounting how she’s trading certain phases and stages of her life for other, hopefully better ones. The rip-roarin’ “I Don’t Need You,” on the other hand, finds Nenni rockin’ a hard-won truth: “Only one soul knows what’s best for me/And it’s the little miss in the mirror.”
The heartfelt “I Can’t Pretend It Never Happened” shares another sort of truth: there’s no forgetting or even forgiving certain transgressions; not all relationships, be they romantic or otherwise, are built to last. As heart-stopping a performance as it is, and it is, the song that follows is akin to electric paddles pressed to the chest: “Rootin’ for You” is a pure delight; to my ears, it conjures “Jailhouse Rock” at its start, though the party is at the foot of a stage and not in a county jail. (That said, the prison that is self-perception plays a pivotal role.)
“We Sure Could Two Step” looks back with wonder at the first pangs of love, while acknowledging that the fights that sometimes ended the nights eventually extinguished those flames. “Set on the Steps” digs into the damaged goods that most folks are: “When I doubt me, I doubt us, too/Some days fighting is easier to do/And the drinking never helps between me and you/But I won’t quit the drinking and I won’t quit you.” “Amarillo Highway” provides a perfect end to the album, connecting the dotted lines from long ago to the present.
Most things in life, good and bad, have been experienced before by someone, somewhere, after all, though not everyone’s stood stoned at the jukebox pressing play on Hank Sr.’s “I Can’t Help It (If I’m Still In Love With You).” Sometimes the feelings come when driving down a lonesome stretch of highway while the radio blares a somebody-done-somebody-wrong song—with the somebody, too often, being ourselves. On Drive & Cry, Emily Nenni has shared an original and fun set of songs that delves into all of that and more.
The Old Grey Cat 
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