Red House
1999
Ten Year Night
About This Album
Lucy Kaplansky, who wrote (or co-wrote with Richard Litvin) three of 12 songs on her debut album, The Tide, and eight of 12 on her second album, Flesh and Bone, is responsible for nine of ten on her third album, Ten Year Night, a progression that makes this disc her most extensive personal statement yet. (The only cover tune included is Steve Earle's "Somewhere out There.") And things are taken very personally here. The title song details the singer's longterm relationship with a romantic partner, recalling the night they met a decade earlier as they drive through the night in the present. In "Promise Me," the singer is again on the road, but this time her partner is not with her and she misses him. Such songs of impassioned devotion are contrasted with examples of what used to be called "finger-pointing songs" when Bob Dylan sang them. "End of the Day" is a harsh criticism of upwardly mobile former friends and colleagues, including a talented fellow folksinger who "sold everything for a Wall Street wage." "Turn the Lights Back On" seems to be directed at a former lover, whom the singer now feels betrayed her. "That trusting girl you knew is dead and gone," she sings in the chorus.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7)

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