When most people think of Oklahoma, they picture flat prairies and dusty, red dirt roads or hear the lonesome cry of a pedal steel guitar in a desperate, drunken outlaw country song. Oklahoma is known for red dirt and outlaw country music as well as ferocious tornadoes, but Oklahoma is also home to a poetic songwriter. John Moreland’s lyrics capture and hold with such grace the anger of the strongest storm, the loneliness of a drunken night, the anxiety of leaving, and the fear of staying where you are.
Moreland, who grew up playing in punk-rock bands such as Thirty Called Arson, released his 2011 album “Earthbound Blues,” beginning a journey into a folk-rock career that would help redefine the Oklahoma music scene.
“Earthbound Blues” is the first glimpse of Moreland’s prolific writing with songs like “Hearts and Flowers.” In the first verse, Moreland declares Hearts and Flowers as his “drugs of choice.” While “Earthbound Blues” still has traces of Moreland’s punk rock up-bringing with songs like “100 Pages of Lies” and “Don’t Come Around,” it’s the quiet, folk-influenced songs like “Hearts and Flowers” that present the poetic prowess of John Moreland.
It was not until his 2013 album “In the Throes” that Moreland truly reveals himself as a writer. The album is full of loneliness and longing for something more in songs like “Blues and Kudzu” where Moreland frustratingly cries, “I stuffed my soul inside a suitcase/A choir of cicadas and box fans sings Mississippi Goddam/I’m just trying to leave behind yesterday.”
If you’re not sad enough after listening to this song, try “Break My Heart Sweetly” or “3:59 AM.” While Moreland has been referred to as the “sad bastard” of country music, especially after “In the Throes,” he does give a glimpse of hope in “Gospel,” a proclamation of how Moreland wants to live. In the last verse he writes, “I wanna set fear on fire and give dreaming a fair shot and never give up whether anybody cares or not.” After “In the Throes” brought him national attention, Moreland’s next two albums began to refine his image from a sad bastard to an honest poet who writes and sings beauty into the most painful parts of life but also celebrates the joy of redemption. The 2015 album “High on Tulsa Heat” is full of stories of heartache and misery. Moreland’s song “Cherokee” is an example of his ability to take pain and sadness and tell his story with such grace. In his well-weathered voice, Moreland sings “I guess I got a taste for poison/ I’ve given up on ever being well/I keep mining the horizon/ Digging for lies I’ve yet to tell.”
While Moreland may be good at sorrow as he so eloquently proclaims in the last verse of “You Don’t Care for Me Enough to Cry,” he is equally as good at finding healing amidst the sorrow. His 2017 album “Big Bad Luv” presents a different view of John Moreland. His signature sound and graceful sorrows are ever-present in songs like “Lies I Chose to Believe” and “No Glory in Regret,” but Moreland gives fleeting glimpses of healing in songs like “Latchkey Kid” and “Love Is Not an Answer.”
By now, the 34-year-old son of a conservative southern Baptist family is covered in tattoos and carries the voice of cigarettes and whiskey, and all of his songs have some kind of sadness in them. They wouldn’t be John Moreland songs without it, and that’s what makes him so special.
Few writers can take pain and misery like Moreland can and hold them with mercy and grace until all that remains are honesty and a path toward healing. John Moreland doesn’t take your breath away, he gives it back and breathes life into a suffocating world.
Moreland’s latest album “LP5” will be released Feb. 7.
