Dreamworks Nashville
2004
Darryl Worley
About This Album
This self-titled effort is album number three and a half for Darryl Worley, if you count his last release, 2003's Have You Forgotten?, largely cobbled together from his first two albums to cash in on the jingoistic single of the same name (which in turn was made to cash in on the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq) and featuring only six new songs, as half an album. Actually, Worley might have been better advised to wait a little longer before putting out a new disc, but then he and his advisors may have wanted to reposition him quickly from his flag-waving persona of 2003; the press release for this album claims it "completely reinvents him as an artist." If so, it reinvents him as a man somewhat humbled by world events, but still interested in them. In "Awful Beautiful Life," the single released long in advance of the album, he mentions in the song's bridge a cousin serving in Iraq (mispronounced "EYE-rack," of course), adding "We're all aware that he may never make it back." "Wake Up America" (the title should have a comma after "Up") sounds like it's going to be a political diatribe from the title, but it turns out to be a lament about drug addiction, an interesting cause for a singer whose songs are sopping with alcohol.
Track List (try tracks 1,3,4,7 and 9)

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