Snow up north and cold down south be damned, spring is in the air—or so I told myself this chilly a.m. while carting the trash to the curb. In truth, powered by renewable sorrows, this topsy-turvy world we inhabit spins like there’s no tomorrow. It wobbles one way and then the next over and over, again and again, sending us to the medicine chest in search of Dramamine. Year after year, decade after decade, paradigm after paradigm—yes, I’m switching metaphors here—we climb aboard the same creaky Tilt-a-Whirl our forebears rode, believing the charismatic barker when he claims the engineers have smoothed out its kinks. We enjoy similar highs as those who came before and, too, experience similar lows. Our stomachs churn. Yet we get back in line, holding out hope that things will correct themselves in time for the second ride. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Hope grazes in the same field as dreams and wishes, however. As Nanci Griffith once sang, “If wishes were changes/We’d all live in roses/And there wouldn’t be children/Who cried in their sleep.” Lucinda Williams, for her part, confided that “if wishes were horses, I’d have a ranch.” Joined by Madison Cunningham and Tim Heidecker, Mikaela Davis explores a similar conceit with “(Looking Through) Rose Colored Glasses,” the propulsive second single from Graceland Way, her forthcoming album, while adding a self-deprecating touch: “Oh, if wishes were horses then I’d be a cowboy/And not a rodeo clown/Hanging onto that buckin’ bronco/Until I hit the ground.” The music sports a taut Tom Petty vibe, at least to my ears, while the lyrics delve into the intangibles that keeps us pushing forward. Looking through rose-colored glasses in hopes of seeing blue doesn’t blind us, after all; it just casts life into another hue.
The Old Grey Cat 