At some point during the mid-1990s, from what she told Billboard, Susanna Hoffs joined a musician meet-up at David Kitay’s studio in L.A. that included David Baerwald, Dan Schwartz and other talented folks, many of whom were part of Sheryl Crow’s Tuesday Night Music Club. I imagine some of the songs they crafted wound up on her eponymous second solo album, as Baerwald and Kitay co-wrote and played on many of those tracks plus are listed as producers, but that’s conjecture. It’s also, in a way, beside the point. Life is life. Carving out time as a 20-something is easy, but by the 30s family responsibilities and obligations have a way of seeping front and center. Everyone drifted apart.
Fast forward a few years: After near a decade apart, Hoffs reunites with her fellow Bangles for a few one-offs, including a Beatles tribute concert overseen by Sir George Martin and the song “Get the Girl” for the second Austin Powers movie. Schwartz also reaches out to see if she has interest in turning their old collaborations into a new album. She does but she needs to stay close to home, as she recently had a baby. They decide to record in her garage. The result is an astounding collection that, for whatever reason, was left behind.
The 10-track set opens with “Under a Cloud,” which channels the Beatles circa Revolver to nice effect, and continues with one of several songs inspired by motherhood, “Grateful.” “Who Will She Be?” is a slice of Beatlesque psychoanalysis that digs into oft-fraught father-daughter relationships. “I’ll Always Love You (The Anti-Heartbreak Song)” continues the ‘60s feel, though more Dusty Springfield than the Fabs. “I Will Take Care of You,” on the other hand, exudes the unfettered love parents have for their children; I can’t listen to it and not hear my mom’s heart, at any rate. “Living Alone Without You,” for its part, speaks to something many couples face—the lack of work-life balance. “November Sun” is an acoustic gem that again approaches love and insecurity, while “As It Falls Apart” mines the same terrain: “I’m no longer a child with childhood dreams/I see you for who you are.”
“Life on the Inside,” written with Charlotte Caffey and Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go’s, revisits the Beatles motif. The album closes with a cover of Shawn Colvin’s “I Don’t Know Why,” released as a single last fall. As I wrote on Instagram at the time, “It’s beautiful, haunting, stark and emotive, and a slightly different timbre than Colvin’s stirring original.” To say that Hoffs’ vocal bores into the soul is an understatement.
In the years that followed, several of the songs were re-purposed for other projects. “I Will Take Care of You” and “Grateful” wound up on the Bangles’ Doll Revolution in 2003, while “Under a Cloud” landed on the Bangles’ Sweetheart of the Sun in 2011 and “November Sun” kicked off her 2012 solo set, Someday. Yet there’s something special about these recordings. It captures not just a moment in time but a moment in mind, aptly reflecting the angst and happiness that accents much of life.
It’s available to stream from all the usual suspect and can be purchased on CD, while a vinyl version will hit the shelves at the end of November.
The track list:
The Old Grey Cat 
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