Her voice glides on the gust of melody, a clarion call emanating from above the cottony-white clouds dotting the blue sky. “Clarion” may not be a perfect fit for this context, as it conjures a loud and clear—even shrill—trumpet, yet it will have to do: Elizabeth Ziman’s vocals are purity set to sound, angelic, while her piano-driven music echoes the pop music of the 1960s and ‘70s. Her lyrics are whimsical yet somber, tackling such topics as caregiving and grief, and underscored by an empathy gained from firsthand experience. As she explains on the album’s Bandcamp page, “The first lesson I learned about caregiving is that I need to put on my own oxygen mask before I can help anyone else. The next lesson (and the one you won’t find in an airline seat-back) was that no matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t take away anyone’s pain. I wasn’t there to fix anyone. I just had to accept them on their own terms.”
In that respect, the opening “I Love You Still” works well as the album’s keynote address; it finds her soothing a loved one upset by the world’s embrace of crazy—and, too, the dread that comes from sensing death is near. “Learning to Drive” downshifts a motorcar into a smart metaphor, while “50/50” chronicles the messy essence that is life; as elsewhere on the album, the songs sport a McCartney-like flair.
“Responsible Friend” explores a flirtation with an old friend brought on by sorrow, not lust: “When someone is grieving/They’re prone to misbehaving.” “Bored of Myself,” meanwhile, tackles a dilemma many of us face from time to time: “I’m so done with myself/If I tried to write a book/It’d be devoid of any meaning/Any drama, any hook/It’d just be page after page/Of periods and sighs/Till the pen fell off the paper/From another pointless line.”
“When a Doctor Needs a Doctor” relives the hustle-and-bustle of the COVID pandemic, when overwhelmed caregivers often needed care themselves. “Goodbye Wisdom,” which finds her bidding adieu to a wisdom tooth, is a silly but fun dentistry ode. The touching “90 Years Young,” on the other hand, finds Ziman stepping into the shoes of her great-aunt Arline; it reminds me of the many great aunts who percolated through my younger years. Written for a friend grappling with long COVID, “Lost Time” delves into the way life freezes in place for those facing chronic illness. “Cellophane,” for its part, opens with a dash of whimsy—“Where did the mermaids go?”—before posing serious questions about the environmental degradation man has wrought. “Stay” closes the proceedings with a low-key note to an on-again, off-again love who, all things being equal, she’d prefer stay away.
Since its release on April 3, I’ve returned to Responsible Friend time and again. It’s a smart and poppy outing that’s home to melodies that waft across the great expanse and lyrics that shed light on the human condition. (Life and death, love and loss, are intrinsically linked, after all.) It’s a wonderful album.
The Old Grey Cat 