For my winter jams this week I chose to post the song I wrote about in the Free Times this week for the Love Stinks issue. I included the short essay I wrote to accompany it.
Second song is a Gillian Welch cover by The New Frontiers.
David Stringer
Jill Andrews, “Worth Keeping”
“Say you’re tired / Say you’re busy / You can lie to me / Should come easy / For you have been doin’ for a while.”
Anyone that has gone through a break-up or desired love that isn’t there can relate to these words, and no one says it more honestly than Jill Andrews. She sang these words directly to the man she wrote them about night after night on tour with her old band The Everybodyfields.
The most painful part of love and love lost is that it almost always still exists in one half of the relationship. Clean breaks are hard to come by, and some of the most painful moments are when one person will do anything to make it right and the other person strings that person along because they aren’t sure what they want. It’s hard to start over, it’s hard to realize all of the time that you consider wasted, and it’s hard to save something that disappeared over time.
Jill Andrews doesn’t have just one heartbreakingly great song; she has a full album’s worth. But you know what? She’s happily married now with a beautiful young child. So if you’re alone on Valentine’s Day, keep hope that the best times are just around the corner.
David Stringer founded and curates local music blog SceneSC.
This New Frontiers cover kind of got buried in the vastness of the internet. It was a recording released by Absolutepunk as a free download of one of my favorite Gillian Welch songs. The download link has been broken for sometime now, but you can still find it around on the web. Great version of a song by a great band that isn’t around anymore.
Let’s start a petition to have The New Frontiers reunite. I’d seriously give all the money in my bank account plus a million doll hairs.